A/N – Heeeeeeere's Johnny! OK, so it's been what, 8 months? Put it down to the crazy life I lived overseas, and the many difficulties I had with accessing , and the insane amount of work I was doing. I used what little time I did have to work on some writing projects of my own (thought I'd give old JK a break) but I found I really missed doing this, and 'communicating' with you guys. So – I'm back home now, and I thought I'd give it a shot and see if I could still do this! Forgive me if I'm a little rusty, or a little here and there with updates, but I'm gonna do my best, pull out all the stops and finish this fic for you. Thanks for your patience – my unending apologies to all I abandoned, 'twas never my intention … Respect, and lots of love xx Shez
Harry slept badly, rolling about on the comfy old Weasley mattress he shared with Ginny (it was well broken in by the many backs that had found their groove in it before him), and trying not to wake her while he fretted. He hated what he'd done, but he also hated what she'd done, Mrs Weasley, and he didn't know how to fix it. He fell asleep at last in the wee hours of the morning, and woke when Ginny poked him in the back.
"Oi. Harry, pancakes!"
"What's that?" he asked, voice muffled into his pillow, and she rolled him over with some difficulty, a wide grin on her bright-eyed morning-face. "Why are you awake?" he asked blearily.
"Why aren't you?" she retorted. "You're meant to be the early riser here."
Why aren't I? he thought, and then remembered, and groaned. "Your mum."
"My mum what?"
"Your mum made pancakes?"
"Exactly! Up!"
"I can't eat them, Ginny. I feel too guilty."
"What, about yesterday?"
"Yes, about yesterday."
"Don't be an idiot."
"I'm serious!"
"Then you are an idiot. It's pancakes, Harry, my mother's pancakes, and I'm not missing out on them over a meaningless tiff."
"It wasn't meaningless for me, and probably not for her either!" he protested, sitting up, and then lying immediately back down again. "Merlin, I'm exhausted."
"Alright," she said, shaking her head. "If you're really going to worry about this, then the very least you can do is go and talk it out with her. Come on, up, dressed. No forget that, just put your dressing gown on." She grabbed his hands and heaved him out of bed until he was upright.
"You just want those damn pancakes," he protested, but she ignored him and threw his slippers at his chest. He caught them automatically, and she turned and left the room, calling blithely behind her: "I'll meet you down there!"
He put the slippers away and dressed half-heartedly, digging up jeans, scraping fingers through his hair. He hesitated for some time over which shirt to wear, and eventually held two up to the mirror, one after the other.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"You're stalling, dear," the mirror said mildly. "And to be frank, they both need a wash."
He sighed, and wriggled into his blue T-shirt. The mirror was right, and so was Ginny. He had to talk this out with his mother-in-law-to-be – the closest woman to a mother he'd ever known – or it would just fester and turn into some kind of horrible Fred-Angelina style scenario where he spent all his time attempting to avoid her, or she him. No – he'd just put it all out there, hand over his humblest apologies for shouting, and hope that something could be done to repair things between them.
When he came downstairs and into the kitchen he found himself face to face with an entire table of Weasleys tucking into ridiculously tall stacks of pancakes. Weasley noses must be extra-sensitive to their mother's cooking, was all he could figure, because they'd all managed to drag themselves out of bed – Ginny, Fred, Ron and Hermione (an honorary Weasley, like himself) were all attacking their pancake-piles, and Mrs Weasley was about to start herself. A syrup-smeared plate on the counter led him to believe that Mr Weasley had been and gone.
"Morning," Harry mumbled.
Ron grunted. Mrs Weasley was the only one who looked up. "Harry," she said, rather breathlessly, brandishing a spatula. "Would you like some pancakes, dear?"
"Er – yes – yes, please – but –" He floundered, uncertain of the right words to use. Fred raised his head from his plate to eye him, clearly curious, and Mrs Weasley interrupted before her son could.
"Would you like to talk?"
"Yes," he said, mightily relieved. "Yes please, Mrs Weasley."
"What's going on?" Fred asked, spraying pancake over Hermione.
"Tha's foul, Fre'," Ginny said through a mouthful, and threw Harry an encouraging smile.
Hermione wiped a fleck of golden syrup from her nose. "Fred," she said witheringly, "that's incredibly unhygienic."
"Yes Fred, chew," Mrs Weasley agreed, as she made her way to Harry in the doorway. Fred frowned heavily and muttered something about his life being blighted with nagging women (Ron apparently didn't count, and was too absorbed in his food to object). Anyway, Harry didn't hear the rest. Mrs Weasley was pulling him out into the hallway, by the stairs, and holding both his hands.
"Dear, how are you?"
"Mrs Weasley, that's what I should be asking you," he said miserably.
"Don't be silly. I mean, I didn't think did I? I'm always just ploughing right ahead and ruining your plans."
"No, no!" he protested. "No, don't say that. I know you're only trying to help. Really. I mean – perhaps you could have asked us first. But I know that you always have the best intentions."
"And now I've ruined your wedding," she said, a small tremble in her voice, and he squeezed her hands.
"Mrs Weasley, please, I'm trying to apologise here."
He managed to look her in the eye, and she seemed genuinely perplexed. "I shouldn't have shouted at you. It was awful of me. I've just been a bit on edge with all the wedding stress, and Ginny was so upset, I lost my head. I'm sorry."
Mrs Weasley squeezed his hands right back.
"That's quite all right, Harry," she said. "I'm sorry too."
There were only a few times in his life in which he'd heard the s-word come out of Mrs Weasley's mouth. No matter what kind of preparation she gave him beforehand, it always took him ever so slightly by surprise.
"I don't want to have any more conflict about the big day, Harry. I want everything to go perfectly for you both. So you needn't worry. And while we're here," she said, after he was silent a few moments, "there's something I'd like to give you." She released one hand to dig into the pocket of her house robe, then turned his left hand over and pressed something into his palm. She took her hands away and he looked at what she'd give him. They were two gold cufflinks in the shape of owls, unmoving, eyes closed.
"For the wedding," Mrs Weasley said, when he still hadn't said a word. "They've been in the Weasley family for years. Arthur's mother gave them to him on our wedding day, and now – I want you to have them."
"Mrs Weasley, I can't," he said wildly, trying to give them back, but she frowned at him.
"Harry, it's tradition. We've both talked about it, Arthur and I. You're to give them to your son one day."
It was too much for her to give him this, especially after their row, but his protests fell on deaf ears. "You've six sons, Mrs Weasley, won't one of them …"
She snorted. "Those boys? I doubt they'll ever organise themselves enough to get married. Besides, you're the first, Harry. You're my first married boy, so you get first pick of the Weasley heirlooms."
"But – I'm not a Weasley!"
She placed a small hand on either side of his face and looked him firmly in the eye. "Of course you are, Harry. You're as Weasley as they come."
Harry couldn't speak at all then. He simply nodded, gripped the cufflinks in his hand, and chewed on his lip to keep from making a fool of himself. Mrs Weasley smiled, kissed him on the forehead, and then wiped away the mark left behind on his skin with one thumb.
"Dear me, I've made a mess of you," she said absent-mindedly. "Now that's real gold, Harry, so you must take care of it. I've some excellent polishing spells, when you want to give them a clean all you have to do is ask me. Now, in you go and help yourself to some pancakes, if the beasts haven't already eaten the lot. I'll be in shortly, must nip out for a moment."
Harry watched her bustle through the living room, wiping at her eyes surreptitiously, and then opened his hand as though to make sure the cufflinks were still there. When he next looked up, Fred was leaning in the kitchen doorway, grinning at him.
"What?" Harry asked, somewhat defensively, and Fred sauntered over to cast his gaze over the little gold owls in his palm.
"I could get you a very good price on those," he said eventually.
"Fred!"
"What?"
"You're hopeless."
"Exactly. That's why I don't get married. Or get heirlooms. 'Tis a cruel world, Potter, but I've learnt to live with it."
Harry felt vaguely guilty, and Fred must have caught something of it because his grin widened. He took a small step towards Harry as though about to clasp him in a hug, but then neatly tucked his head under one arm instead, and mercilessly ground a knuckle into his skull. With difficulty, Harry yanked his wand out of his pocket and managed to aim a Disengagement charm somewhere at Fred's person.
"Merlin's knees!" Fred swore, and leapt back, rubbing his lower belly. He narrowed his eyes at Harry. "Cheeky. Very cheeky. A few inches down, and that could have gone horribly wrong"
Harry shrugged and matched him grin for grin. His mood had suddenly hit the ceiling, and was still on the up.
"Anyway, I'm off," Fred said airily, passing him.
"Yeah?" Harry asked, watching the redhead fetch his dragon-skin jacket out of the closet by the door. "Had enough of me, have you?"
"Had enough of this house of women, more like. I'm off to find George and serenade myself back into favour."
"What about Angelina?"
Fred's expression darkened. "Angelina," he said, shrugging into his jacket, "is sulking at her sister's flat. And I'm not leaving one house of women just to end up in another. If she comes around, tell her I'm in – I don't know, Brighton. Ooh, no, tell her I'm in the South of France!"
"The South of France?"
"With a model. Two models. And my own elephant." He passed Harry again, this time into the living room, and raised a hand over his shoulder goodbye. Harry heard him cry "Fred and George's swingin' bachelor pad", presumably into the Floo network, and smiled ruefully. Poor old Angelina, trying to hustle commitment out of one of the most stubbornly fancy-free men in London. He had a feeling it was a rather desperate case.
"Well, well," said Ginny, from the kitchen doorway. She was leaning against the frame as Fred had done, and he thought again how alike she and the twins were at times.
"Well, well," he returned, and went to her. "Pancakes good?"
"Of course. Conversation good?"
"Mm. Don't know. Your Mum ended up apologising, once I had, and then she gave me these."
He showed her the links, and Ginny gasped and examined them and exclaimed over the working of the owls as girls are wont to do with new things, especially gifts. After she'd looked at them all over, and pronounced them gorgeous, she gave him a kiss.
"Good morning," she said, smiling into his lips. "Sorry I woke you up. I smell pancakes and I go mad."
"It's alright." He kissed her again. "I'm glad we sorted it out anyway. Your mum and me, I mean."
"Don't worry about the invitations," she said, pinching him on the arm. "We'll find a way to fix it. I mean, we've got to. Even if we have to lock the Durselys in the attic for the duration."
He nodded once. "Yeah, I know. It'll be OK. I'm not really worried anymore."
And he wasn't, not just then. He went with Ginny back into the kitchen, pushing the cufflinks into his pocket. Their slight weight was somehow comforting.
Harry and Ron were sat outside, trimming their broomsticks, when the brief calm Harry had found was unceremoniously destroyed. It started with a shrill scream, then some feverous swearing, and then another outraged scream. Ron and Harry didn't move for a moment.
"That's not Hermione," Ron said eventually, over another string of curses.
"No," said Harry, "it's Ginny."
They looked at each other, and then started up, and went running back into the house. Harry couldn't suppress a sigh as they followed the high-pitched outrage (now joined by gasps and apologies from Hermione – what was going on?) upstairs. Was anything destined to go right for any distinct period of time this summer? Was this going to be how the rest of their lives played out, this mess and complication and struggle, all the time?
Both boys stopped when they came to the hall. Ginny was standing outside their bedroom, holding rags in her hands, tears and frustration in her eyes. Hermione was perhaps a metre from her, falling over herself with apologies. Between them was Crookshanks. The cat turned and looked at Harry, and Harry could have sworn he saw satisfaction gleaming in those black feline eyes.
"What's happened?" Ron said, from the safety of their position at the top of the stairs. He didn't seem to want to get closer, and Harry couldn't blame him. The situation looked just a little scary.
"This is what's happened," Ginny said venenmously, and threw the pile of rags – white rags – at her feet. Crookshanks ducked out of the way and mewed a complaint. "I hate you!" Ginny shouted at him. "Go away!"
"Crookshanks, go," Hermione said softly. The words choked in her throat, as though she might cry. "I'm so sorry, Ginny. I'm so sorry."
Ginny took a deep, trembling breath and simply stared at the pile of rags on the floor. Harry, still confused, did the same, and soon he thought: That's the same material as Ginny's dress, and then: Merlin, that is Ginny's dress. Immediately, his leaden feet became light again, and he hurried forward to his fiancée.
"Oh, Harry," she said, as his arms went around her.
"My poor girl. I'm sorry."
She buried her face in his shoulder and then turned her head to speak against his neck. "It's ruined. My dress. Crookshanks got in and ruined it."
"Sh, it's alright," Harry murmured, just as Hermione began to speak again.
"I'm sorry, Ginny, I'm so horribly, awfully sorry, I can't even tell you." Ron had come to her too, and was standing behind with a hand on her shoulder.
Ginny whipped about to face her friend.
"Maybe you should have thought how horribly sorry you'd be before you let Crookshanks wander into our room."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know!"
"You should lock him up or something, he's a menace! I mean, look what he's –" Staring at the remains of her dream dress, she was speechless for a moment, but then swallowed and found voice once more. "Look what's he's done. He's ruined the wedding. He's ruined it."
"Now, that's just not true," Hermione said firmly, even as she swallowed a lump of apologetic tears. "That's simply not true, Ginny. We'll find a way to fix it. We will. You mustn't think it's all ruined."
"But it is!" Ginny wailed. "It is for me!"
"Gin, I –" she began helplessly, but Ginny cut her off with a snap.
"Don't, you'll only make it worse."
Ron placed his other hand protectively upon Hermione's shoulder and pulled her towards him. " Don't talk to 'Mione like that," he said, "it's not her fault Crookshanks is a vicious beast. You know we can't control him like a regular pet."
"Well maybe you should learn!"
"Well maybe you should remember it's just a dress."
"Ron!" said Hermione.
"What?"
"Yes, what?" Ginny demanded. "What can you possibly say to fix this?"
"Stop it!" Harry bellowed, very suddenly, over the three of them, as loudly as he might shout during a game of quidditch. They immediately fell silent to stare at him, each with varying degrees of belligerence in their expressions. Harry released Ginny and turned her around so that she faced him. "Ginny, it's terrible, of course it is. I know you're upset, but you mustn't pretend this ruins everything, because you know it doesn't. Don't you?"
Ginny bit her lip and eventually nodded.
"Owl to the woman today, she can probably fix it. Hermione?"
"Yes?" Hermione said, somewhat defensively, and Harry shook his head at her. "It's not your fault. So don't worry. Ron?"
"I get one?"
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Don't talk to your sister like that."
Ron shrugged, and then grinned as Harry grinned. "Merlin," he said, straightening his glasses on his nose, "you're like a bunch of third years, aren't you?"
Hermione and Ginny were no longer listening to Harry.
"Sorry," Ginny said quietly.
"Me too," Hermione said. "Really."
And that was all it took. They shook off their respective men and went hurrying forward to clutch each other in a hug. Crookshanks wound about their feet, purring contentedly. The girls ignored him and held each other and talked about being sorry and what a shame and oh but never mind for quite some time.
"Well done, mate." Ron moved to stand by his side and watch their girlfriends make it up.
"It'll be alright," said Harry, doing his best to sound convincing. The truth was, now that he really looked at what had been Ginny's wedding dress, and saw how completely it had been ripped to shreds, he wasn't sure if there was any possible way to make it look as it had before.
For Ginny's sake, he hoped they'd manage something.
That night, Harry came back from a late-night flight (an attempt to clear his thoughts and relax for an hour or so) to a dark and silent Burrow. He assumed that the Weasleys had retired for the evening, so picked his way upstairs as quietly as possible, and opened their bedroom door with a minimum of creaking. Ginny was already in bed, lying on her side with her hair out and falling over her face a little. He carefully put his broom away, took off his clothes, tossed his glasses on the bedside table, and climbed into bed. She moved as she felt his arms slide around her waist.
"Hey," he whispered.
She didn't say anything, and he lightly tickled her stomach. "Hey," he said again, smiling, but there was still not response. "Gin. Ginny, are you awake?"
She made a small sound, muffled into her pillow.
"Gin. Come on, what's up?"
Very slowly, she rolled over to meet his eye. Her face was red and her eyes swollen with crying. She still had tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Oh, sweetheart," he sighed, and took her face in his hands, wiping away the tears with his thumbs. She closed her eyes, her face crumpling beneath his sympathy, and he kissed her mouth and salty cheeks and closed eyes, and stroked her brow until she calmed a little.
"Is this about the dress?" he asked, and she shook her head against the pillow.
"No," she said throatily, "not exactly."
"What is it then?"
"I don't know. It's everything. I owled the dress makers and they said they can't possibly fix it in time, and they can't refund our money either. And then all those awful people coming to our wedding, and Malfoy won't be there because of my family, and you really want him to be, and I know my mother is planning something, I can tell, and oh – just everything. Everything's just wrong."
He didn't know what to say to this. Things didn't seem nearly so dire from his point of view, but she was so upset that there must be some justification for her feelings. It was unlike her, this hysteria, and he couldn't quite understand it. She was usually so serene, but she'd been all over the place lately.
"Well – I mean, what do you want to do? Do you want to – postpone?"
"Oh, we can't, the invitations are out, it's too difficult."
"It's not if you want to do it."
Fresh tears pressed from her eyes. "I'm sorry, Harry, I don't know what's the matter with me." She sighed impatiently, and brushed the tears away. "I can't seem to – to calm down."
"Honey, take a deep breath."
She took a deep breath, and then another one. "It's going to be OK," he said, touching his forehead to hers. "Alright? It's going to be OK." He hesitated, and then asked her what he had to ask her, the same question that Ron had put to him not long ago. "You do want to get married, don't you?"
She exhaled and then nodded. "More than anything. More than anything, Harry."
He exhaled too, relieved. "Good."
"I don't know what's the matter with me," she said again, sounding genuinely bemused, and he pressed himself closer to her, skin on skin. He could feel her blood pumping.
"This wedding is going to be great. I promise. It's going to be the best day of your life. And I'm not going to let any little complications stand in the way of that."
They looked at each other for a long moment, and then Ginny kissed him hard, and he rolled over with her, and felt her heartbeat quicken against his.
Later, he watched her sleep, and hoped a fervent hope that he would be able to keep this promise to his future wife. For some reason, he felt he'd almost jinxed himself.