A/N: Welcome to the slightly fluffy Harry/Ginny chapter.
"Mrs. Weasley's New Help"
Wizard's Weddings didn't happen to differ much from the traditional Muggle wedding style - except for it would be harder to break a Wizard's vow than to sign up for a Muggle divorce. From what Harry had gathered from the wedding between Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour, when a marriage is being performed, their magic is intertwined and laced magic is hard to sever. While he doubted that Bill and Fleur would have any problems, he wondered what exactly happens when a Witch or Wizard's loved one dies.
There he was again, thinking about death. The subject made him slightly uneasy, like he'd swallowed a particularly large bit of food that lodged itself in his throat and wouldn't be removed. Had Dumbledore once loved somebody enough to share his magic with? Had Sirius? Harry doubted that Sirius had even had the chance to be in love with somebody; he'd been whisked away to Azkaban so early on in his life that everything was torn away from him, but somehow his parents had managed to get married and have a child almost directly after graduating from Hogwarts. How would it feel to be lonely your entire life, Harry wondered as he held Ginny close, letting her sniffle into his robes. Pity crashed from him in waves at the thought that Sirius had never had a chance to love or be loved in return.
Harry, however, was much the same.
Ginny separated her face from his shoulder and made an attempt to rid her face of any evidence that she'd been crying without much success. She glanced over at Harry, caught his eye, and immediately removed her arm from his. Harry's stomach did sommersaults. It seemed to him that Ginny looked angry and upset and while he could understand why, it just hurt him to see her like that.
"Gin -"
"I'm not a child, Harry," she said, breaking into his sentence. She spoke quietly, just loud enough for Harry to hear her so as not to upset or ruin the celebrations that had erupted around them. "I think I know perfectly well how to take care of myself. I was part of the D.A., I held my own in the Department of Mysteries, and I kicked arse at Hogwarts -"
Harry looked around them to see if anyone was listening in on their conversation. Ron and Hermione were no longer sitting beside him, but were dancing around with one another next to Bill and Fleur. The various guests, friends and family members alike, were eating, drinking, and dancing, paying no nevermind to Harry and Ginny, still sitting in the place where they'd watched the wedding from.
"Do you not like me, Harry? Because I really don't understand how you can be so selfish."
"No, it's not like that," said Harry, running his hand through his hair. His heart thudded so loudly in his chest that he was sure it was drowning out the music that played in the background. "I just... I can't put you in that sort of danger, Ginny. I can't have what happened to my parents, what happened to so many people, happen to you."
"Stop trying to protect me, Harry, I can do that for myself!"
"Part of loving someone is trying to protect them."
Ginny stopped and stared. Her brown eyes glittered with tears. "I'm leaving tomorrow - Ron, Hermione and I are going to get rid of Voldemort once and for all, so there can't be an us right now, Ginny, no matter how much we want it." He kissed her forehead, stared into her eyes, and gave a pathetic attempt at a smile. His chest felt like it was going to cave in. Before him, Ginny frowned, her eyes boring into his, demanding answers. She wasn't going to take this sitting down and Harry, for once in the time he had known the Weasley's, regretted their family-inhereted stubbornness.
At that moment, however, Nymphadora Tonks chose to come up behind the two and surprise them with a "Hey, what're you two doing, sitting here by yourselves? C'mon, Fleur's almost in tears because Bill smashed a chunk of cake in her hair on accident. Really, you have to see this..." she added gleefully as she skipped away, her hair now a bright shade of magenta. Harry watched her as she pounced Remus Lupin and climbed onto his back.
"Tonks is right, Ginny," said Harry. "I don't think this is the time for this. It's Bill's wedding, after all..."
As Ginny wiped away more tears from her face, Harry wondered how exactly it was that women could cry so much and how it happened that they had enough tears in them to cry. Mrs. Weasley was almost constantly in tears and now Ginny? He vaguley remembered Tonks looking as though she was going to burst into tears all of last year, but... Harry stood up, grabbed Ginny by her hand and helped bring her to her feet. He gave her a slight hug, embracing the girl he'd fallen so hard for but just couldn't bring himself to be with in such tough times.
They broke apart and went their separate ways, Harry to Ron and Hermione, while Ginny joined random members from her family that Harry had never met. Harry watched as Ginny was grabbed and pulled into a large, rambunctious circle of family members that surrounded Bill and Fleur who were laughing and batting away unwelcome hands. Looking at Fleur, he realized that nobody from her family was present at the wedding. The nearest thing that resembled her had been Tonks with her Veela-esque hair that she'd since changed.
"Where's Fleur's family?" he asked Ron.
"They couldn't get into Britian - there's too many regulations and restrictions up right now, with the return of You-Know-Who and all."
Harry thought for a second. "How could Charlie get back, then?"
"Charlie's an English citizen," Hermione stated matter-of-factly. "I'm sure he had to go through loads of security checkpoints to get back into England and was probably quizzed and watched to make sure that he wasn't going to the bad side, but it's definately easier to get back into a country if you're already a citizen of it."
"Oh..." Fleur's family was French, but then again, so was she. "Would Fleur have gotten deported if she hadn't married Bill?" Harry had spied a few movies that Aunt Petunia had watched in the lounge that involved people marrying one another so one wasn't shipped back to their home country.
Ron stared at Harry for a second, trying to register what he'd just asked. "What?"
"Ron, seriously. Harry's asking if Fleur would have been sent back to France if she and Bill hadn't gotten married."
"I don't know. I don't think so, at least..."
Harry frowned. If only the Ministry had listened to him and Dumbledore when Voldemort's return was fresh and he hadn't been able to rally up all of his Death Eaters, then things would be a little different. Sure, there would probably still be a regulation on who could and couldn't enter the country and perhaps even leave it, but if that were the case, then Fleur Delacour wouldn't have been able to come back to England in the first place to shack up with Bill Weasley.
Plastering a large, fake smile on his face, Harry joined Ron and Hermione in the festivities. Bill and Fleur's party lasted well until the sun came down, when a great deal of the odd end Weasley family members left, and the members of the Order stayed to help clean up and keep a guard for the Weasley's. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, along with Fred, George, and Charlie magicked away the chairs, the platform, the trash littering the ground and Ginny tended to trampled plants. Charlie's foregin friend kept mostly to herself, and once or twice, Harry found himself staring up at her.
After all, she had beautiful, enrapturing eyes.
Too soon it was so dark that there was no point in staying outside unless they used magic to illuminate the yard, which Mr. Weasley fought furiously against when his wife demanded that they finish cleaning. He shouted that any excess magic would be a prime target for Death Eater's attentions, and would they need that?
Bill and Fleur had left for the night, gone to the Leaky Cauldron which was undoubtedly empty, save for the old barkeeper, Tom, to celebrate their nuptuals. Charlie and his friend were also shaking up at the Leaky Cauldron and were going to leave back for Romania first thing in the morning. Mrs. Weasley was sad to see her second eldest son leave, but wished him well and gave him leftovers from the party.
"You need feeding, dearie. Take care of yourself, please. Keep watch."
"I know, mother, thanks. C'mon Aurelia," he said, speaking to his woman-friend and they Side-Along Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron, leaving Fred, George, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in the cramped Burrow kitchen.
"Alright then... off to bed with the lot of you," said Mrs. Weasley, shooing everyone from the kitchen table and forcing them up the stairway. "Sweet dreams."
"Yeah, right," Harry muttered under his breath. He rarely had good dreams but they weren't as bad as before, when his and Voldemort's minds were connected. He thanked that Voldemort was practicing Occlumency, otherwise his scar would be throbbing worse than ever (he figured), and he would have the most wicked nightmares. That was something, he thought, that he could definately do without.
Ron and Harry left the girls on the third landing and headed up to Ron's attic room, changed into their pajamas and tucked themselves into bed. The room was dark, but far from quiet. The pipes above were banging around and before long, Ron's snoring filled the air. Harry lay there, quiet and taking in his surroundings before finally falling asleep himself.
Sunlight streaked across Harry's face and the gentle warmth roused him from his slumber. Ron's snores were few and far between, but he was still dead asleep. Harry rolled out of his camp bed, opened his trunk, and grabbed a pair of clothes, his robes, and a fresh pair of socks. He dressed himself slowly and exited Ron's room, trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake his friend.
They were leaving today. Harry's stomach was churing - he was nervous, but he'd been waiting for this moment since the school year was "officially" over. He, along with his two best friends, were going to put a stop to the menace that plagued the Wizarding Community but he couldn't deny that it was going to be a very hard, very taxing experience. Every ounce of strength, every bit of knowledge they had inside was going to be tested to the limit but he had faith in his abilities and in his friends. There was no doubt in his mind that they would not be able to accomplish what they set out to do.
He entered the kitchen, and rich aromas of cooking bacon, frying potatoes and freshly squeezed orange juice welcomed him. Mrs. Weasley stood before the stove, watching the food prepare itself, occasionally giving something in a pan a poke or prod with her wand. Harry pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat himself at it.
The sound of the chair moving startled Mrs. Weasley, and she turned around. "Oh, Harry, it's just you." She flashed him an apologetic smile. "How are you this morning? Breakfast is almost ready."
She turned back to her cooking. Harry sat and watched her, wondering. She seemed far too happy to him, especially since yesterday she was in tears, upset at the thought of losing a son (if only to another woman) - shouldn't she be in tears because she might be losing her youngest son? He was soon to be off, gallavanting around, searching for a way to destroy Voldemort. It struck Harry as odd.
...Maybe she didn't know.
Harry's stomach clenched itself into knots and his appteite left him. Ron hadn't told his mother what it was that they were going to do, and if anything happened to Ron, it would be entirely his, Harry's, fault.
"I'm... er, I'm going to wake up Ron," he said and slipped away from the table without a backward glance. Harry darted up the stairs and entered Ron's room with a bang of the door against his bedroom wall. Ron sat up immediately, wide awake.
"What the hell?" he asked, setting his wand back down. He had grabbed it from beneath his pillow and held it out before him. "Harry, don't do that. You scared the hell out of me."
"Why haven't you told your mum?" Harry demanded. He stalked across the room. "She doesn't know!"
Ron stared at Harry. "...I can't tell her, Harry. I'm just going to leave a note for her and dad because I can't bring myself to tell her. She wouldn't let me go on my own!" he added, seeing Harry's disgusted look. "She thinks we're going back to Hogwarts next year and that you and Hermione are here for the Summer."
Something inside Harry boiled, but he understood what Ron meant. It simply upset him that he didn't trust his mother enough to let her know that they were going to gallavant out into danger, without having completed their Hogwarts education. He turned away as Ron got dressed, waited, and went downstairs for breakfast with his friend.
Mrs. Weasley laid out their plates, piled food onto them and yelled a few times at Fred and George for good measure. Hermione and Ginny joined them a few minutes later. They both looked tired and groggy. Ginny glared at Harry from her spot at the table, and Harry, who had very little appetite to begin with, felt completely revolted by the rest of his food and shoved it away from him. Ron gladly took his plate and ate the remander of his bacon.
When breakfast was consumed, each of the Weasley's went their separate ways. Mrs. Weasley cleaned up the dishes and set them to work in the sink, Fred and George left for their workshop, and Ginny stomped angrily up to her room. Harry winced with each footfall, thinking it was his head that Ginny was stomping on.
Ron, Harry, and Hermione excused themselves and headed up to Ron's bedroom. Ron quickly packed his things into his trunk, grabbed his broom and tried to shrink it so that it would fit comfortably into his trunk. Where he failed miserably, Hermione was quick to fix any damage he'd done incorrectly. He thanked her and shoved his broom into his trunk miserably, having been shown up by Hermione once more.
He had already written a long, heavily-worded letter to his mother on a roll of parchment. Harry watched as Ron pulled it out of his sock drawer and laid it on his bed with shaking hands. Ron was nervous. Harry couldn't really blame him - after all, they were about to go and risk their necks all for the good of the entire Wizarding World.
Hermione gave Ron a hug and laid her head on his shoulder. Seeing them reminded Harry of the day before, when Ginny sat there, crying into his shoulder. He was going to miss her.
With ease, Hermione transfigured their trunks into minature, doll-house looking furniture trunks and scooped them into her hand. She pocketed them into her jeans and gave them a rueful smile.
"I did it to my trunk this morning. It'll make them easier to transport."
The three stood there, staring at one another, wondering which move to make first. It was Harry who spoke first.
"I want to go to Godric's Hollow. It's where my parents used to live... it's where we lived." He stared at the floor. "Maybe there's something there?"
"Yeah, you're right, mate." Hermione nodded along with Ron.
"We should probably stop back at Grimmauld Place, just to see if there isn't anything that we could use," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "Is Kreacher back at Grimmauld Place, or is he still working at Hogwarts?"
Once again, Harry felt dumber than a box of rocks. "He's still at Hogwarts. Oiy, Kreacher!"
With a pop, an ancient looking house-elf with a dingy old tea cozy wrapped like a loincloth around his middle, a round snout-like nose, and hairy, bat-like ears sprung out of nowhere. He looked dazed, staring at his surroundings. Kreacher the house-elf noticed the feet around him and looked up to see his master and two others standing before him.
"Kreacher does not want to be here, he will not serve the little brats. Oh if my poor mistress could see me, filthy mudbloods, blood traitors, scum..."
Harry felt the urge to slap the old house-elf around the head a few times but refrained himself. Instead, he smiled down at the ugly old beast and said, "You're to work for the Weasley's until I say not to, do you understand?"
The house-elf hissed and positively howled as if it was in pain. "Oh this cannot be happening to Kreacher! What did he do to deserve to serve the filthy blood traitors? My mistress, oh no, my mistress would be so angry, so upset. Kreacher will not serve them, he would rather be with the Malfoy boy, oh yes. Kreacher wants his mistress!"
"You listen here, Kreacher," Harry said with authority. "You will help out Mrs. Weasley with whatever it is that she asks. You cannot go to the Malfoys or Bellatrix Lestrange." The names felt like dirt in his mouth. "Start by cleaning Ron's room. I want it spotless," he added when Kreacher threw himself to the ground.
"FILTHY -"
But they weren't listening. Harry, Ron, and Hermione Apparated with a "pop," all headed for Number 12, Grimmauld Place.