The words hit her like a pound of bricks.

Ginny,

Please meet me for lunch this afternoon in Diagon Alley. We have some matters to settle.

I'll meet you outside Gringotts at 1 pm.

See you then,

Harry

It was just like him. No "will this work for you?" or "How does this sound?" in sight. What if she had had plans? She hadn't, but that wasn't the point. Harry Bloody Potter was too busy saving the world to care about her nonexistent prior engagements.

Unfortunately, her mother had recognized Harry's new snowy owl and tore open the note, greeting Ginny at breakfast with a knowing and sickly-sweet smile. They'd been broken up for two months, but her mother clearly still hoped the split was reversible. She actually made Ginny change into more "presentable" clothes before she'd let her leave the house!

Thankfully, Molly hadn't gone as far as to instruct her to make amends with Harry, but it was in her warm, brown eyes as she kissed her only daughter's forehead and wished her luck.

By the time Ginny was free of her mother's incessant fussing, she was late to meet with Harry. She was barely out the door when she Disapparated, and she had to fight through the weekday lunch crowds to get to the bank.

Harry was standing by the huge doors, cleaning his glasses on the sleeve of his Ministry robes. "Oh! Erm, hello," he said awkwardly, holding out his hand and pulling it back suddenly.

"Yeah. Let's get this over with?" she suggested, swinging open the large doors and walking in.

Harry's presence made her second trip to Gringotts more fruitful, though many of the goblins gave them long, sideways glances. It was only fair, really: Harry was one of only three humans who'd robbed the bank and lived...Thinking of yet another of Harry's innumerable acts of heroism made her shudder. Once her small independent vault was set up and she withdrew enough money for advanced rent on a new apartment, she tried to say her goodbyes.

"I thought...maybe lunch?" Harry said civilly, looking anywhere but her eyes.

"Thanks, but I'm a bit knackered, and I should get apartment hunting," she said, not leaving it open for discussion. "Thanks for helping me sort out my situation, though." She considered apologizing for the storm of messy and dangerous magic she'd left for him when she moved out, but didn't bother.

"Oh! Sure. It was nothing, really. I guess I'll see you around?" he said awkwardly.

"Sure. Mum'll probably owl you, I think you're pretty much still an honorary Weasley." It was a struggle to hide her grimace, but she managed. "Anyways, apartment hunting. See you."

Harry mumbled a farewell, but she didn't bother offering her own. The only goodbye she had for him was probably still stuck to his bedroom door.

Fish and chips on the Muggle side of London was her low-budget lunch fare today, a welcome respite in a whirlwind of apartment hunting. Wizard lodgings often came with ridiculous markups, a result of their amenities needing to be kept a secret by law. But what many of her school acquaintances had figured out was that it was easier (and much cheaper) to pose as a Muggle uni student and rent a flat that way.

Ginny poked around a few vacant studio apartments, but they were either extremely run-down or in sketchy neighborhoods, so she gave up before dark. Reluctantly, she wandered back to the Leaky Cauldron for a pint or two before completely retreating to the Burrow.

She stared into the foamy head resting on top of her beer, trying not to think of how awkward and depressing her afternoon had been. The overwhelming sensation was one of a deep and heavy fog, like she'd been hungover from the fermented leftovers of her years with Harry. She had all the symptoms, at least: nausea and a raging headache, a foul taste in her mouth, an overwhelming sense of regret. If I'm going to feel it, I may as well earn it, she told herself, raising the cold pilsner to her lips and taking a deep quaff.

"Long week for you as well, I take it?" a voice clipped behind her.

"Mmk!" Ginny squeaked into the liquid, accidentally slopping a bit down her front. "Oliver! Shit, you scared me," she winced, mopping the trail of beer off her chest with the questionably clean napkin in front of her.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, then gestured to the stool next to her. "Mind if I join you? I'll even buy you your next round as an apology."

"Go ahead!" she smiled widely, glad to have such attractive company. "But don't bother, I've got my very own Gringotts account to blow on alcohol as of this afternoon, and I've got a few years of catching up to do, I think."

Oliver hesitated before nodding slowly, in what Ginny assumed was an effort to tread lightly around the topic of her breakup. "I won't try to keep up with you," he said after a time, "I've gotten hammered with far too many Weasleys to try that again any time soon."

"Ha! And I'd heard the Scots could hold their liquor," she teased, draining her second drink and signaling to the barkeep for another. "Just along for the ride, then? Things could get messy," she warned. Ginny had only been truly intoxicated a few times, but it was enough to know she went from very social to very angry as she graduated from tipsy to sloshed, and her currently fragile emotional state could send her into a bout of the horrific drunk weeping that Fleur was prone to.

He absentmindedly chewed his bottom lip, considering his next words. "Count me as…First Mate on your ship, Captain Weasley."

Drily, she responded, "Is the ship called 'Broken Quidditch Dreams?'"

Oliver winced. "I think we'd have to share captaincy on that one, Ginny." It was his turn to take an extremely long drink. "Maybe, 'We Thought We'd Have This Figured Out By Now,' eh? I like that one." He held his glass up in a mock-toast, and she clinked hers against it in agreement.

"What's so un-figured about your life?" she questioned a few minutes later, twisting around on the barstool.

He shrugged. "Dunno, really, and that's the worst part."