The next morning, Ginny woke up in Harry's bed, where they had moved once the Quidditch match was over. It was intensely comfortable and, if Ginny wasn't so excited about starting her new job, it would have been difficult to leave the bed. She rolled over, expecting to see Harry there, and furrowed her brow when he wasn't. She pulled herself out of bed and put on his dressing gown, entering into the main apartment area. She saw a note on the kitchen counter and sighed.

Ginny –

I had to go into work early today, but I didn't want to wake you up. You looked too beautiful asleep in my bed. I really want to see you again. My phone number is 07692944195. Call me so that I can have your number too.

See you soon,

Harry

xx

Ginny tucked the note into the pocket of the dressing gown and grabbed her clothes from the previous day. She then left the apartment and went back to her own room, ready to start her new job.

XXX

Harry Potter sat with the twelve other Auror Department team leaders and Gawain Robards, the head of the Auror Office. "Potter," Robards said, after finishing speaking to Reggie Tate, "There's a new case involving the illegal trade of potions. I want you to take it. I'd normally give it to Jennings, but his team are swamped at the moment and you solved that case on Friday. I've got all the details here," Robards said, giving Harry a few pieces of paper. "There's been deaths, over ten, all linked to the London potions, drugs and narcotics ring. There's a list from St Mungo's there on the amount of cases they've had from PDN this month alone. It's a dangerous business, Potter, and I want HPHPHP on it, mostly, but bring HPHPJR and HPHPDB in on it too, if you think that it's necessary. Just solve it," Robards said. Harry nodded curtly.

"You can go and do the department briefing now," the department head said. "Potter, here's the list of newbies. You make sure they go to the right departments," Robards said wearily. Harry nodded again and he walked out.

"You're looking perky today, Potter," Naomi Logan, head of youth, said as they walked from Robards' office to the Auror common room, where the briefing was held every Monday.

"Did somebody get laid last night?" Lucy Sanders, the head of sexual harassment, asked with a teasing grin.

"Maybe," Harry returned with a wink.

"Ooh, who is she?" Lucy asked desperately.

"Is it that lawyer girl who was flirting with you last week?" the head of criminal justice, Nicola, asked, eyes wide.

"No," Harry said, rolling his eyes as they entered the room.

"Is she a witch?" another department head, Owen James, asked.

"Yeah," Harry replied, battling his way through the crowd.

"Is she fit?" Mike Allison asked desperately. Harry smirked.

"OKAY!" Harry shouted across the room. Everybody shut up. "Thank you, all, and welcome to the Auror New Year. I hope we have all recovered from our hangovers from Friday and are all ready to start again," Harry said with a warm smile. "We have fifty-six new cadets this year and I would like you all to welcome them now," Harry said, raising his hand and everybody started to clap. "Cheers. Other announcements are…" Harry said, trailing off. "Oh!" he remembered. "I know it's only September but names for the Christmas party need to be written down before the fifteenth if you want to come. It's twenty galleons for the night and you get a hotel room. Spouses are welcome, but no kids," Harry said with a grin. Everybody cheered and Harry laughed.

"Erm, Anna has something to say," Harry said, looking at another department head. She nodded.

"Witness care, guys," she started and the room groaned. "I know, I know and that's why I'm in charge of it…"

Harry tuned the rest of what Anna was saying out, as he took his phone out to check if Ginny had called yet. He frowned when he saw she hadn't. "Thanks, Anna," Harry said, seeing she had finished. "Now, I don't think there is anything else. SATR are sorting out the floo crime?" Harry checked and he saw Tracey Rufford, a sub-team leader, nod. "Excellent and OJLOED are still working with the computer people?" Another nod. "Brilliant. Okay, you lot can bugger off, except the new cadets. Gemma and Ben, you lead the HP briefing. I'll be there in a few," Harry said and the aurors began to filter out, leaving only the new cadets and the department heads there.

"Hello!" Harry said to the new aurors. "Welcome to being an Auror. We have a briefing every Monday morning as a full department. You are going to be assigned to a team. My team is called HP, because my name is Harry Potter," he explained, ignoring gasps. "In that team, you will be put into a sub-team. In my team, the sub-teams are HPHP, HPGE and HPBN. From those sub-teams, you are split into a further, smaller team. A sub-sub-team if you like. For example, I'll take the first name on the list.

"Thomas Ackley. You are in my team, Ben Norse's sub-team and Delilah Newman's sub-sub-team, so your team is called HPBNDN. Does that make sense?" Harry asked and people nodded. "Great. Now, I'm going to tell you the departments and their initials. If you hear those initials when I read out what team you're in, then go to that person and they will show you your sub-team and sub-sub-team.

"We have Monica Parks (MP), Michael Allison (MA), David Jennings (DJ), Nicola Roberts (NR), Anna McLaughlin (AM), Naomi Logan (NL), Owen James (OJ), Sam Allen (SA), Jeremy Hampton (JH), Francis Dixon (FD), Reginald Tate (RT), Lucy Sanders (LS) and myself, Harry Potter (HP). Right, let's start."

Harry read down the list, pointing out the team leaders as he read the team names. It took a long time, but he finally reached the end. "Ginny Weasley, HPHPHP," Harry said with a smile, recognising the name Ginny and looking up. The bottom fell out of his stomach when he saw her standing there, a nervous smile on her face. "Right, you lot can all leave too. You three, come with me," Harry said, smiling. "Matthew," he said, turning to another boy. "You're in Gemma Eckland's sub-team and also in Gemma's sub-sub-team. Gem!" Harry called to the red-haired woman talking to the aurors. She looked over. "She's your leader, Matthew, so once she's finished speaking, you go and speak to her. Thomas, as I said before, you're in Ben's sub-team and Delilah's sub-sub-team and Delilah!" Harry shouted and the tall brunette looked up. "That's Delilah. Now, Ginny, you're in my sub-team and my sub-sub-team, so you stick with me and I'll get you kitted up. If you just join the crowd there," he suggested to the three of them. They left. Ginny turned to look to him and Harry swallowed.

"Fuck," he muttered. He then plastered a smile to his face and went to join Gemma and Ben. "Okay, guys, I'm sure Gemma and Ben have rambled on about everything we've got to do this week, so I'm not gonna speak for too much longer. HPBNIW are on that double homicide. The witness is with Anna in witness care, so two of you with witness care training can go and interview her pronto. Oh, and, lastly, we've got that fun residential coming up for team building, so I'm sure we're all really excited. Now, leave," he said, shooing them away with his hand.

They laughed and Harry walked into the room that read HPHP. There were sofas and some food was laid out. Harry smiled, grabbing a sandwich. "Okay, HPHPHP come to our offices. We've got a new case," he said, shaking the papers Robards had given him.

Harry opened the door and watched them all file in. He sighed as he entered. "Everyone, this is Ginny. You can all make your introductions later. We have a new case. It's a PDN case – Potions, Drugs and Narcotics, that is. I know, I can feel your excitement. There's been ten deaths all linked to the London PDN ring. He wants it solved. I know you'd think RT'd be all over it but with those dodgy potions in Manchester, they just don't have the manpower. I want Maggie, Simon, Vicky and Cameron to look through the latest PDN cases and find out where the rings are operating most heavily. Lewis, Kenneth and Chloe, I need you to go and visit those lovely pubs and shops in Knockturn Alley and talk to the workers to see if they can give us any names. Robin, Ruby and Stacey, I have a list of the deaths. You're going to St. Mungo's to talk to the healers who did the post-mortems. Alex, I need you to go and get all the information from RT on the London PDN ring – big names, drugs most in use, historic deaths and murders. I'm going to kit Ginny up," Harry said with a smile.

XXX

Ginny stood in the common room with one of her friends from Auror college, Natalie, and watched as the heads approached. "You finally moved out then?" Natalie asked and Ginny laughed, nodding.

"I'm so glad I'm away from the Burrow. I was so fed up of my mum's hints about me settling down and getting married instead of becoming an Auror. Like, what did she think I was going to do after Auror college? Not become an Auror? She's such a -"

Natalie never found out what Molly was, though, because, at that moment, the team leaders walked in and Harry Potter was at the lead. Ginny couldn't help but remember last night, when he had fucked her in an elevator on the way to his room. Ginny looked to the ground. Shit. Harry didn't see her, thankfully, but he would soon, surely.

"- who was flirting with you last week?" one of the team leaders with wide eyes asked Harry.

"No," Harry said, rolling his eyes. Ginny stared at him. He was so hot.

"Is she a witch?" another team leader asked. Ginny furrowed her brow. What were they talking about?

"Yeah," Harry replied, battling his way through the crowd.

"Is she fit?" yet another team leader asked. Harry smirked. Were they talking about Harry having slept her? Or somebody else?

"OKAY!" Harry shouted across the room. Everybody shut up. Ginny was in awe of the power he had. Everybody clearly liked him and Ginny couldn't imagine why not. "Thank you, all, and welcome to the Auror New Year. I hope we have all recovered from our hangovers from Friday and are all ready to start again," Harry said with a warm smile. "We have fifty-six new cadets this year and I would like you all to welcome them now," Harry said, raising his hand and everybody started to clap. "Cheers. Other announcements are…" Harry said, trailing off. "Oh!" he remembered. He was so damn cute…

"I know it's only September but names for the Christmas party need to be written down before the fifteenth if you want to come. It's twenty galleons for the night and you get a hotel room. Spouses are welcome, but no kids," Harry said with a grin. Everybody cheered and Harry laughed. Ginny imagined Harry taking her in a hotel room, fucking her speechless like he had last night.

"Erm, Anna has something to say," Harry said, looking at another team leader. She nodded and started to talk about witnesses or something. Ginny couldn't listen. She just stared at Harry, admiring him in his auror robes.

When Harry finally noticed Ginny, not long later, she watched his jaw drop and listened to him tell her she was in his sub-sub-team. Of course she was. Nothing was ever easy for Ginny.

Harry took her into another room and he made a little speech and then he took her through into a room where there was a conference room. Each person took a seat around the table, as if by rote, and Ginny took the remaining one. Harry sent her a warming smile. He spoke for a while and Ginny just stared at him, watching his face as his muscles moved.

"I'm going to kit Ginny up!" Harry said and Ginny heard her name and snapped out of it, jumping up and following Harry into a room. "Oh fuck," he swore when they entered. "I swear I didn't know," he told her desperately. Ginny sat down on a bench. The room was a changing room and Ginny imagined him taking her in there. She shook herself. She couldn't do this – he was her boss.

"I believe you, Harry," she whispered, "and I don't want to be that girl, the one that everyone gossips about because she's sleeping with the boss. I want to be an auror, Harry, but last night…" she trailed off and Harry smiled at her.

"I know," Harry agreed with a grim smile, "but, Ginny, I'm your boss, like your immediate boss. I mean, if you were in a different team or something, but you're in my team," he said desperately.

"I understand," she said sadly. "I just thought we really connected," she said, cursing herself for sounding absolutely clichéd.

"Me too," Harry sighed, sitting down on the changing room bench. Ginny sat down next to him. "I guess we'll have to just be friends," he said reluctantly. Ginny nodded, worrying her bottom lip. "I'd better get you kitted up," he said, dragging his eyes away from her. He stood up. "This is the changing room," he told her. "We all get changed in here, but, if you're not comfortable with getting changed publically, there are private changing rooms."

"Like all the guys and girls in the same room?" Ginny questioned with raised brows.

"Yeah," he said, thinking about all of those guys seeing Ginny practically naked. Ginny blew out a breath and Harry walked to the back of the room, where there were some shelves. "What size are you?" he asked.

"I'm an eight," she informed him. He nodded and pulled out size eight auror robes and a training kit. "Great," she said.

"You wear the auror robes over whatever you usually wear, which needs to be comfortable. Heels are only acceptable if they're those ones you can get now that you can change to be flats," he told her, looking down at her heels. Ginny nodded and demonstrated that, in fact, her heels were the stated example. "Perfect. We train as a team three times a week: Tuesday mornings, Wednesday afternoons and Friday mornings. You use your training kit for that," he informed her. "Is there anything else you want to know?" he asked. She shook her head. "Okay, great. I'll introduce you to everyone," he said, looking into her eyes. She stared straight back into his.

"Okay," he said, exhaling with a smile. "Let me introduce you," he said, opening the door. He took her to a conference table, where four people were sat with a mound of files. "Guys!" he interrupted them and they looked up. "This is Ginny Weasley. She's an investigative action auror. Officially, she's your partner, Maggie, but, Ginny, we don't really work in partners, because we've got one of the biggest teams in the department, so we work in mini teams."

"Like sub-sub-sub-teams?" Ginny joked and was gratified when Harry chuckled, throwing her a smile.

"So, that's Maggie, then there's Simon, Vicky and Cameron. Vicky is our forensics expert. Maggie does witness care and Simon and Cameron are action aurors. Keep going, guys," Harry said, as he led Ginny over to another table, where three people were looking over St Mungo's records.

He made the same introductions, but with Lewis, Kenneth and Chloe, who were all investigative aurors. "Now, we have the lovely job of paperwork," he said, opening the door to his office. Upon entry, Ginny was shocked. There were five other doors in the office. "Oh," Harry said, noticing her looking at the doors. "I have one for my sub-sub-team, one for each of the sub-teams, so in Gemma and Ben's main areas, one in the main HP HQ, where we had the briefing, one in the department head's corridor and one at the Ministry of Magic. Crazy, huh?" Harry said, rolling his eyes. He sat down on the swivel chair behind his rather magnificent desk and Ginny sat on the other side.

"Okay, so we have to go through some questions," Harry said, "so that it's all on file. We've got all your basic details, of course, from training, but there's some more information we need. Firstly, family members," he started.

"What do you mean by family?"

"Erm, parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, children, partners," he told her.

"Ah," she said, smiling sheepishly. "Just names or…?"

"Occupation, too, ideally," Harry told her. Ginny nodded slowly.

"Okay, don't interrupt me. My parents are Molly and Arthur Weasley. My mum stays at home and my dad is head of muggle relations at the Ministry. I have six – five brothers. Bill – William – works as a Curse Breaker at the Ministry, although he used to work at Gringotts. Charlie – Charles – works at the Magical Zoo in Devon, specialising in dragons. Percy – Percival – works in the Minister's office. George owns a shop on Diagon Alley, which he opened with Fred, his twin, in 1996, but Fred died in the Final Battle. Ron – Ronald, that is – is in the Auror Academy, but he's definitely going to drop out at some point.

"I guess, then I have some sister-in-laws as well? Fleur is married to Bill and she is a liaison with the veela community, because she's a quarter-veela. Percy is married to Audrey, who is the Minister's Ethics Committee Head. George is married to Angelina, who is a chaser for the Harpies, and Ron is in a pretty serious relationship with Hermione Granger, who is a lawyer, specifically for being's rights.

"Bill and Fleur have two daughters – Victoire and Dominique, who are three and one respectively. Percy has Molly, who is two, and Audrey is pregnant. I have no children and no partner," she finished.

Harry finished scribbling all of that down. "Five brothers?" he said weakly. Ginny grinned.

"Yeah, five older brothers," she confirmed.

"Do me a favour and don't tell them we've slept together," he said casually and Ginny shook her head with a laugh.

"Any more questions?" she checked.

"Yeah, a few," he said.

XXX

That night, at eight o'clock, Ginny apparated into her apartment and huffed when she remembered she had no furniture. "Fourteen more days," Ginny said, referring to payday. She was tired but she had no bed. She guessed that she would just have to sleep on the sofa in the communal lounge. She grabbed a packet of crisps, thankful that they had gone to the pub after work and she'd bought a hot pot.

She wandered downstairs and found Harry in the communal lounge. She stood at the door for a moment, wondering whether it was worth the temptation. She shook herself. She needed somewhere to sleep.

"Come in," Harry told her and Ginny smiled, sitting down on the couch next to him. He was filling out some paperwork, probably for work.

"Early Quidditch match," Ginny noted, checking her watch. Normally, matches started at just past eleven.

"Euros qualifier," Harry said absently.

"You okay?" Ginny checked.

Harry sighed. "Four people in my department have told me they're retiring next August," he stated. Ginny gasped.

"From our team?"

"The overall team. Dawn Bennett, Jim Larson and Simon and Kenneth from our sub-sub-team. Dawn and Jim are both sub-sub-team leaders, so I'm trying to decide who I want to be the next leaders and get them on some courses," he said, looking over the names.

"Is it not just the people with the most experience?" Ginny queried. Harry shook his head.

"In DB, that would be Salvador Neal and he- well, let's just say he's had a bit of trouble," Harry said, rolling his eyes. Ginny chuckled.

The team came up for England on the screen. "Wood's good, isn't he?" Harry commented.

"Yeah, he played for Gryffindor at Hogwarts, too. He was good then," Ginny said.

"Did you play for his team?" he asked. He didn't look at her and Ginny knew why. She was barely looking at him for fear that they'd make the mistake they had the previous night.

Ginny nodded and then gasped. "I didn't realise Angie was playing," she commented. "Angelina Johnson," she clarified at Harry's look. "Oh my gosh," she said, shocked.

"Your sister-in-law, right?"

Ginny nodded, pleased that he'd remembered. "I wish I was there," she pouted.

"My sub-sub-team are going to the actual euros," he offered.

"Me too?" she questioned with wide eyes. Harry nodded.

"Of course. You're a part of the team," he reminded her. Ginny grinned sheepishly.

"Which match?"

"We'll go to a few, I'd expect. I'll have to wait until the dates are out."

"Oh, that would be so amazing! And to go to Italy," Ginny sighed dreamily.

Harry smiled. "We'll probably all have a week off and see maybe four games that week."

"This is so exciting! Oh and, speaking of holidays," Ginny said, "you mentioned a residential at work and I forgot to ask you about it. What's the deal there?"

"Oh," Harry said, nodding. They paused to watch the players take off, the English in white and the Swedish in blue. "Yeah, well, once a year, we go to this residential place for team building," Harry said with a roll of his eyes. "Every sub-sub-team has to go on one, so I looked around and this place looked quite good. To be honest, we just do activities like canoeing and shit during the day and then we sit around a campfire by night. It's all camping, so you'll have to get a tent, and it's a muggle place, so you can't have one of those magical tents that are actually like palaces inside," Harry said with a laugh. Ginny nodded.

"Well, that doesn't sound too bad," Ginny surmised. "Do we stay in tents on our own or with a partner?" she asked.

"You could stay in a tent with Maggie if you wanted," Harry offered. "We usually stay alone, though," Harry told her. Ginny nodded.

"When is that?"

"Mid-October, so it's lovely and cold and rainy," Harry said sarcastically. Ginny sniggered. She watched his eyes go to the screen, where two of the players were fighting.

"What the hell?" Ginny said with an incredulous look. Two of the players, Lara Odell from England and Agata Nilsson from Sweden, both highly respected beaters, were having an all-out brawl in the air.

"I love it when stuff like this happens," Harry commented with a grin. "Want a beer?" he offered. Ginny nodded and he opened a green glass bottle for her.

"Cheers," she replied, sipping it and finding it pleasantly chilled. "They're gonna be kicked off the pitch," Ginny said excitedly. "Who've we got on the bench?"

"Ben Fielder," Harry replied immediately, "but he's got nowhere near the skill of Odell," Harry said, swearing quietly.

"But at least Nilsson's off the pitch. Last game against her, she hit our seeker with a bludger to the head and Hill's never played again," Ginny balanced. Harry nodded.

"There you go," he said, as the ref took them off the pitch. Game started again and they both sat quietly.

"Harry, I wanted to tell you something," Ginny said, after Angelina scored a goal.

"Hmm?" he said, turning to her.

"I don't usually do what I did last night," she said, slightly awkwardly.

"What? Have sex?" he asked, furrowing his brow.

"Not after meeting somebody thirty minutes before," she said, looking down to her lap. "I'm not saying I regret it, because I don't, but I just wanted to say that I'm not some sort of slag," she made clear.

"If it makes you feel better, I don't usually do that either. In fact, that was the first sex I've had in six months," Harry said with a laugh.

"Oh. Okay then. I just wanted to tell you," she said, biting her lip.

"Just for the record, I didn't think you were a slag," Harry told her.

"Oh. Well, good," she said, staring down at her lap.

"Ginny, I don't want things to be awkward," Harry sighed.

"Neither do I," Ginny agreed. Harry nodded.

"Then, let's agree, they're not awkward," he declared.

"Can we do that?" Ginny laughed.

"Just did."