Title: Diverging Reality
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Ginny, Arthur
Chapter: 11
Word Count: 2337
Warnings: nothing

Edited by: eiliagh
AN: I hate shopping weeks, but here's something new that was going to come from the very start! Enjoy.

A week after the meeting between Harry and Bill, Ginevra had been dragged to an empty classroom on Saturday, after her meeting 'date' with Harry, by Arthur. He had simply pushed her into a desk seat, having changed his days off so that he could do what he needed to do by forcing her to start reading the books, finally.

Or, to at least get the important part of the information that she needed as the future wife of Harry.

He had read the copies that Bill had received from the young heir and found that they were quite a bit more strict in regards to Brides of the House of Potter and the House of Black.

He dreaded what would have happened if she didn't read the books and understood the position that she was now in. She would be the Wife of a Lord. The Weasleys would have been forced to remove her from their line fully otherwise his boys' livelihoods would have been put in jeopardy at the first insult that came from her that would put her or her husband in a bad light. And they were the first generation that wasn't under the blood curse. He wasn't forcing them back under something like that.

So here he was, forcing her to read.

Not only that, but he was still trying to process what the Ministry-paid exam, mental and physical, had found in him. He hadn't done it in the last fifteen years, not since he had joined the Ministry and the war had ended. They suggested he start eating healthier, but physically he was fine. Mentally though...he had something called PTSD which had affected the way he had acted around his wife.

That had been just after Bill had come to talk to him, and he already had two meetings with the mind healer that the ministry was paying for, and was finding himself again. The night before, he had sat Molly down and told her that according to the charters of the Black family, she wasn't allowed to plan the wedding. And, if she tried, the betrothal contract would punish her. She had started to throw a fit about that, insulting Lady Malfoy until she was shocked silent when Arthur had hit her with a silencing spell and told her to listen to her Head of Household.

He had then laid out the rules for how they were going to treat their children. Ron had sent him a letter telling him that he was thinking of taking up the Prewitt heirship and was reading all the books on politics that he could, thinking of it as in terms of a chess game mixed with a board game called Life and Monopoly.

The twins were already set up in their shop and building up a good business for themselves. Bill, Charlie and Percy were doing well in their own personal careers. Ron and Ginny were the only two left in the house, at least until Ginny was married. Both of them would do their chores but would still have time to relax and enjoy their summer months.

And Molly wouldn't stop them from it with some inane need to force them to keep working even when there was nothing that needed to be done.

He warned her that Ron would be taking a couple of hours each day after breakfast to study in the privacy of Arthur's personal study. It was a room that no one could enter without his permission and Ron was already keyed into the wards around it so that he could come and go as needed.

He had also told her he was going to force Ginevra to actually do what she needed to do, making Molly sullen as she stalked about the house, unable to do a thing.

"I hate reading boring things," Ginny whined as Arthur placed the books down in front of her, the desk he was going to work at already piled high with paperwork to catch up.

"I don't particularly care if you hate them," Arthur stated. He sat down across from her and pulled a folder towards him. "This will be our schedule from now on, even over the Christmas holidays. This will last until just after the Easter holidays. No, you will not be able to get Headmaster Dumbledore to do anything. This is a family matter only, and if he knows anything about that, he knows to keep his nose out of this. And no, your mother will not be getting you out. Should you try for anyone, that will just mean that you have lost all of your current privileges, and you will only work on your homework and this. You were the one who wanted to marry the 'Great Harry Potter'. Well that means realizing that he is an Heir, soon to be Lord, of two houses and that means you need to know how to act in polite society."

Ginny scowled at him but started to go over the schedule that he had given her. It was planned out down to the last little bit. It even included when she would have free time, when her so-called dates with Harry were, and when she was to be in bed and out of bed. She scowled.

"I'm only getting two dates during all of this?" she asked, upset at that.

"Heir Potter-Black has much that he needs to focus on and that was what he could fit in. And before you ask about the Christmas and Easter holidays, you won't be here, and neither will he. There is also the fact that you are coming up on the end of term and various other things that both of you must attend to," Arthur told her. "There will also be new rules that you are going to follow from now on. Your brother Ron will be joining in on a few of your lessons. It's time that the Weasley family show the truth of their Blood," he said.

Ginevra looked scandalized. "Are you telling me we're going to be like Malfoy? Why?!" she screeched. She gagged when suds suddenly appeared in her mouth, not having seen her father pull his wand as he tucked it back into place. The suds dissipated fast enough but left a lingering unpleasant taste that she quickly rinsed out with the bucket and water that was offered to her by Winky.

"You will watch what tone you use with me, Ginevra Weasley. You are still a Weasley and a Prewitt. Just because your mother was told that she will be unable to inherit doesn't mean that you can just ignore the charters that run our family," he stated, his eyes flinty. Ginevra wiped off her mouth with a napkin and stared at her father in shock. He had never once raised his voice at them, much less her, but the very fact that he had verbally slapped her down was enough of a shock to her to shut up.

Arthur nodded and started to go over the schedule, telling her that she would be closely watched over, and if she wasn't doing what she had to be doing, she would end up being moved to the room that McGonagall had offered the use for. She had already set it up, wanting to make sure that the young Potter-Black wouldn't be embarrassed by his wife, leaving a black mark on his name.

He explained about how she was to start acting around the school from that day forward and that he would be getting daily reports on her behavior. He went over how if she looked at another male for any reason beyond schoolwork, she would find herself in trouble at their future meetings. He warned her that if he had to, he would personally put a chastity spell on her. She eeped and shuddered, remembering how the one time she had dealt with it had felt. Her aunt Muriel had stuck it on her for a week just before her third year when she had started to find boys attractive and fun to play with.

She had worked hard from that day to not draw any attention to her activities with her partners, not that she had done very much beyond some heavy petting under their clothes. She had heard about what had happened last week after Malfoy had demanded a full examination for purity and virginity.

He and Pansy were still friends, but the contract had been broken and she was looking at having to settle for someone under her status for a marriage who would take under her name. Her husband would most likely be a second son from a Noble house at the very least. Ginny had heard her talk about just maybe going for what people called the Concubine Contract. She was the heir to the Parkinson family after all, so it wouldn't be a bad thing and she would have more options in a varying range.

It was the fact that she hadn't kept to her contract that made her look bad.

She really didn't want to have to deal with being forced out of her own contract with Harry just because of some clauses that were in it. That was the one thing that Harry had told Dumbledore and her about the contract when asked. That the virginity clause that had been put in would stay, and that meant that they couldn't sleep together before they were married. Nor could they sleep with others.

So far he hadn't been convinced to remove it neither by her wiles nor with Dumbledore trying to get him to remove it.

Arthur continued on with telling her how she was going to be dressed from now on, Harry paying for a whole new wardrobe through a tailor. Lady Malfoy was overseeing it to make sure she had the right things. She would end up with new everyday clothes, including robes to wear over them, new school robes, and she wasn't allowed to alter them in any form, fashion or way. The designs were approved by the Charters, even as updated as they were.

After he had finished going over the homework that he expected her to do for him, she stared at him as he packed up his own copies of the charters. He left her two out. "Dad?" she asked softly, a thought making her frown.

Arthur looked to her and raised an eyebrow, a file open in front of him. "Yes?" he asked as he put his satchel down.

"What happened to you? Did…did something happen to make you so mean?" she asked.

Arthur sighed and laced his fingers together on the file. "Ginny, I'm not being mean. When I was a part of the first war against Voldemort, there were things that I had to do and had seen during the fighting. You may not know this, but I am a fully trained healer. And I've kept up my training. If I wanted to, I could walk into St. Mungos right this minute and be given a job as a healer. I could train someone how to heal. There's a reason why I was the one to take care of your hurts when you were home. And to give you potions," he said. "But I couldn't do it anymore. There were just too many losses under my hands during the war. The curses were so evil and vile that I couldn't stand being in some of the rooms there. I saw everything from curses to hexes and potions, acids and poisons that would kill a person slowly. I couldn't stand being there."

He sighed as he sat up straight, Ginevra staring at her father with wide, horrified eyes.

"I have something called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The non-magicals used to call it shell shock. PTSD...such a simple term for something that can ruin a life. It's a mental condition and it's only in the last ten years that we've really had to go to the other side of our world to learn about how to treat it," he said. "There's been many discoveries during that time to figure out just how it affects a magical. The ministry had agreed to pay for my sessions though with a New Blood who kept up their studies in the non-magical side of things. They became a mind healer called a psychologist with a specialty in trauma therapy. She's been putting out new studies, and in return for therapy to help me with my issues, she can write about me. Ginny, I've let your mother walk over me. I'm not now."

Ginevra sighed and nodded. "So you're getting over this PTSD stuff?" she asked.

"I am. I also believe that your mother has it, too, in her own form of PTSD and I'm setting it up to send her to her own sessions. Even if I have to force her to go as the Head of the Weasley family, I will. I'm also looking at a complete overhaul of my department starting this holiday. That doesn't mean that I will be allowing you to slack during the holidays," he warned her. Ginevra smiled slightly and nodded before he sighed and checked the time, packing up and telling her he was heading home and that she needed to start working on her things.

Once he was gone, she sighed and tapped the runes on the corner of the books so that they shrunk down to the size of a journal, tucking them into her own satchel. She supposed that if her father was forcing the issue, she didn't have much choice. Her mother often let her get away with doing things but her father had never done that when it was something that he wanted her to do. But she didn't want to work in the empty classroom though.

Her personal desk was better to let her thoughts wander as she wrote in her journal.