Author's note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights

Hogwarts: Assignment 10, Culinary Arts Task #10: Write about someone's patience wearing thin and they react.

Content Warnings: NA

Warning Shots

When he helped Ginny ease herself up, she turned to the bassinette immediately.

"I've got him," Harry promised her.

"You've already called carrying the bag, let me take the baby," Ginny said. "I can bear more than my own weight, you know."

"You've got stitches in you," Harry pointed out. "I don't."

"Which is really a testament to my self-control even 18 hours into labour," Ginny said with a grin. "But really. I've got him. I've carried him nine months, I can carry him home."

Harry hesitated but then nodded. He couldn't help but smile as Ginny scooped up Jamie and cooed at him.

"Oh, I know," she said when he got fussy. "I know, you want to sleep. Believe me, I feel you baby."

"Let's get you two home, then," Harry said.

They stopped by the nursing station at the end of the hall to thank their favourite Healers, the ones that had worked especially hard to keep them calm and informed when labour had started so early—-and had worked even harder to keep Ginny and Jamie safe and healthy. Harry had half a mind to empty the Potter family Gringotts vault directly into St-Mungo's lobby, but he did have a small child's future in mind now.

They rode the lift down to the lobby, from which they could Apparate home. Jamie was already falling asleep in Ginny's arms, but Harry didn't miss the way that she leaned against the tin wall.

"Gin?"

"I'm okay," she said with a tired smile. Her hair was falling out of its ponytail and she was wearing the softest, lightest sweater her mother had ever knitted. "I'm just excited to get home."

"Me too," Harry said. Ron and Hermione had been watering the plants while they were gone and they said they'd drop off the dog and some groceries today too, possibly some take-away so they didn't have to feed themselves tonight. Harry wouldn't be surprised if they'd stuck around to see their godson again, he was a little bit addicting. He reached out to brush two fingers against Jamie's wispy hair.

He was stuck in that line of thought when the lift doors opened, so it took a second before he registered all the lights and sound and noise from the lobby.

"Oh Merlin," Ginny gasped—just as the familiar flash of a camera went off. The flurry of noise that rose up immediately afterwards was disarming and just as familiar; it was the sound of reporters shouting a million questions at a time from which Harry could only register his name and Ginny's.

Between what could only be called "the Boy Who Lived situation," both their participation in the war, his work with the Auror Office, and Ginny's increasingly successful Quidditch career… well, they weren't not used to reporters would be one way to put it. Journalists were one thing, but paparazzis? They were positively nightmarish. He and Ginny had essentially eloped knowing that if they hadn't planned their wedding in more than 7 hours, there was a chance the press wouldn't make it. They had to essentially ward the entire Muggle neighbourhood where they lived on a weekly basis against them, and snapshots of them debating which jam to buy at the grocery store still ended up splashed on tabloid sometimes, foreshadowing immediate divorce. Of course the second Ginny had started sitting out some of the riskier training exercises on the Quidditch pitch, rumours that she was pregnant had taken off like bloodthirsty Cornish pixies. The second she'd started showing, ridiculous columns about how much weight women really had to gain during a pregnancy had started running. But they'd been careful to keep the details of the pregnancy hushed up, to be as subtle and discreet as possible. St. Mungo's had rolled out extra security and made sure Ginny had her own room. What had happened? Who had told the press they were here? Another family who had been in their ward? Surely not a Healer…

Harry was still trying to figure it out when Ginny's breath caught in her throat and she hugged Jamie to her chest protectively, eyes wide.

And that made him unspeakably angry.

The noise woke up Jamie and he started crying and that made Harry even more angry. He'd been in the papers as a baby, sure, and then he'd been in the spotlight almost constantly since he'd been 14. A child. Specifically, a child who hadn't had anybody close and constant and stable and present enough to stand up for him. That wasn't Jamie's story, so this chapter ended now.

Harry drew his wand.

"Finestra!" he cried, carefully controlling the spell's strength so it only hit a few key targets: the camera lenses. Sure enough, all around the room, glass shattered and littered the floor of the lobby. The clamour of questions turned to surprised screams, gasps, and shouts of outrage.

Harry turned to Ginny.

"Are you alright to Apparate from here?" he asked over the sound of Jamie screaming.

She nodded and kissed his cheek quickly before wrapping her arms even more tightly around the baby and vanishing. Harry's stomach jumped for a second, this wast he first time he'd been away from them since Jamie had been born. So clamped his jaw shut, hauled her hospital bag over his shoulder, and stepped out of the lift.

"You're going to be the death of me," Harry told the crowd of vultures around him, not minding the disgust that dripped into his voice. "What in Merlin's damned name do you think you're doing here? My wife had a baby six days ago. Our child's not even a week old. How dare you harass them?"

"Is it a boy or a girl, Harry?" someone asked.

"It's a fuck you," Harry said. "Consider that a warning shot. Come near my family again and not only will I shatter your cameras, but I'll make you eat the glass. I left your Quick-Quotes Quills in one piece so you can quote me on that and if that's not enough, trust that I'll be tracking the lot of you down and dragging you through the Wizengamot for every photograph you steal."

He smashed the button to close the lift doors to shut out the buzz he'd generated, that way he could take a deep breath, calm himself down by thinking of Jamie, and Apparate back home to him.

WC: 1068