Chapter 5

()()()

Harry leaned his head back wishing there was a headrest on his desk chair but there wasn't, so his head simply kept going backwards until his neck could not stretch back any further. He had just gotten back to the office after a two-day stake out and was so very tired. It was incredibly tedious work and, as if the boring job of surveillance wasn't enough, he had to come back to the office and document all of the monotony. The paperwork was just as bad as the actual leg work.

It was paperwork he had been too tired to do really, but if he got the paperwork done now then he wouldn't have to come in tomorrow to complete it and could spend the entire day doing nothing.

And that nothing sounded like a more preferable way to spend his day tomorrow.

It had been over a week since he'd seen Ginny too. They had sent a few owls back and forth but she was busy with her team and he had been assigned this case that had just wrapped up. Her last letter had mentioned something about a Quidditch lockdown if the Harpies managed to win the next few games and they were in the finals for a round robin of the National teams. The Harpies had won their last game and if they won the next two then she would be getting confined to a dormitory style existence for possibly two months.

He really wanted to get in at least one more proper date with her before that happened.

Sealing up the final bit of documentation he grabbed his jacket and braced himself to take it to Angelique. He really didn't want her latching on to him again and forcing him to escort her to the fire grates in the lobby. He was too damned polite to put a stop to it completely as well. The girl just didn't take the hint.

She was at her desk and he approached, the whole walk there he was trying to think of what excuse he could give her that would mean she wouldn't be able to ride the lift with him.

"Here is the paperwork on the Parson's Apothecary stake-out job," he told her as he handed over the file.

"Great, thanks," she said dismissively and stamped it. She didn't even look up at him or give him a fake smile. "I'll see he gets it."

Harry was a little taken aback at her attitude. It was completely out of character for her not to pull off some attempt at flirting, but not wanting to press his luck by standing in front of her for any longer he turned away and headed straight for the lift.

The doors opened for the others waiting as Harry reached them and he stepped on.

"Harry," came a jovial voice from the corner of the carriage.

Harry turned to see Arthur Weasley standing there with a polite smile on his face and Harry's stomach gained a weighted feeling; He was dating this man's daughter and wasn't sure how he was supposed to be behaving around him. Did he carry on with him as he had three weeks ago during their lunches? Was he supposed to bring up the fact that he was seeing Ginny? Was there some kind of permission he was supposed to receive in order to continue seeing Ginny?

"How are you doing? It's been a while since I've seen you around the cafeteria," Arthur carried on pleasantly.

"Er, yeah. That was mainly Remus' encouragement. I've been out though for the last few days. On assignment."

"Of course," Arthur nodded, "life of an Auror is never dull. Look, my wife Molly has been asking me to bring you around for dinner one of these days and I was hoping I might convince you to join us this Friday? She makes a wonderful roast and most of the family will be there. You remember my boys, they'll be there with their wives and girlfriends and such, plenty of conversation for you to join in on. I've invited Remus as well."

Harry was struck for a moment. He was being invited to Ginny's family home for dinner with her family. That could potentially be very awkward if they knew about how the two of them were seeing each other. He couldn't say no though, could he? That would make a poor impression of him and he'd already said no when Remus had invited him several times before.

"That sounds lovely," Harry managed. "A good home cooked meal could probably do me some good."

"Wonderful!" Arthur beamed at him. "Around five o'clock tomorrow then?"

The 'tomorrow' portion of that statement echoed inside Harry's head. Tomorrow was Friday? Where in the hell had the time gone? That meant he hadn't seen Ginny for nine days already. Sure they had just started seeing each other, but that felt like a really long time.

"Er, great. I'll just… head over with Remus I suppose."

The lift reached the Atrium level and everyone headed out the doors, Arthur giving him a comradely pat of the shoulder as he passed. Harry kept his pace a bit slower so that Mr. Weasley could get to the fires ahead of him and thought over what had just happened. Was there a chance that Ginny had told her parents that they were dating?

Heading straight home Harry checked to see if there was any mail that had been dropped off for him on the kitchen table and there was nothing. He popped into the shower and tried not to overthink about what would have prompted the Weasley's to invite him over.

It wasn't weird.

He was sure it wasn't.

Remus had been trying to get him over there for ages, and he hadn't read into that then, there was no point in reading any more into it now.

After drying off from his shower and changing into his pajamas to lay about on the sofa he wrote another letter to Ginny to warn her that he had been invited over for dinner the next day, trying very hard not to make it seem like he was completely fine with it and that he wasn't curious at all what they might know about the two of them. He read it over several times to make sure it didn't seem like he was accidentally accusing her of anything.

Neville got home an hour later and Harry was still working on his letter with several scraps of paper balled up on the floor.

"Hey mate," Neville said tiredly. "There any dinner on?"

"No," Harry replied, still focused on his letter.

"What's that?" Neville asked seeing all the crumpled up pieces of paper on the ground beside Harry's feet.

"I've been asked to the Weasley's family home by Arthur Weasley himself for dinner tomorrow." Harry glanced up at Neville's face to see how he took this information, trying to see if this was surprising or alarming in any way.

"Okay," Neville said with a shrug like it wasn't a big deal.

No, of course Neville didn't see why this was a big deal.

"Why would they invite me?" Harry asked, trying to spell it out through his tone. "They don't know me that well. It has to be something to do with Ginny, right? Isn't that a little soon?"

"Oh!" Neville let out as realization dawned. "You're freaking out again." He was nodding in his understanding.

"I'm not freaking out," Harry said defensively.

"Yeah you are," Neville chuckled. "You've got the same look on your face you did right before your date with her two weeks ago."

"Three," Harry corrected unnecessarily.

"Right, three weeks ago. Considering you didn't come home until lunch the next day and you had a little skip in your step I'm assuming your date had gone really well."

"And? What's your point?"

"My point is that that date went well, and your dinner tomorrow will probably go well also." Neville bent down and picked up one of the pieces of parchment. "Good thing you tossed this one aside. Looks like you're accusing her of pushing things too far too fast."

"What if it was her idea that her father ask me over for their family get together?"

"What if it wasn't and you sent this to her?" Neville countered holding up the piece of parchment that may as well have read out 'how could you' in gigantic letters.

"I just… I need to know why," Harry deflated. "I like her, I do. But dinner with the parents and brothers and everyone else in her family isn't exactly what I envisioned for our… third date."

"Merlin, you've only had three dates with her and you're this worked up?" Neville exclaimed.

Harry wasn't sure how to respond to that. He didn't know if he was more panicked or worried. He hadn't ever been in a situation to meet a girls parents before, granted he already knew Ginny's parents, just not in this capacity. Did he want to make a good impression to her parents or was he more concerned that Ginny had announced to them that they were together?

The last time he'd seen her was at the Ministry and he hadn't thought to much about his actions around her in front of everyone at the Ministry that walked passed them. He'd been quite keen to just snog her in the lobby and walk around with his arm around her.

Oh no, maybe it hadn't even been her that told her family, maybe it had been him!

"Oh bugger!" he brought his palms up to his eyes. "I snogged her at the Ministry! It might not have even been her that told her parents. Anyone could have easily seen me do that. I'm such an idiot. Why did I do that?!" It had been a while since anything had been printed in the magical media about him but the Ministry was choc-a-block full of rubber neckers.

"Because you like her," Neville spelled it out for him.

"Alright, alright." With this new realization he grabbed a fresh piece of parchment and wrote something down quickly, sending it off with their owl before he could second guess himself again. What he wrote had been straight forward and placed the blame completely on him, that way if it had been her that was gushing or something about their time spent together then she should feel comfortable enough to admit it to him when they saw each other next.

"You said something about dinner?" Harry asked Neville once the window was closed again. He'd been ignoring the rumbling in his belly until he could get that task taken care of.

()()()

All day Harry had been trying not to fret over the implications of his being invited to The Burrow, as he remembered it was called. He'd cleaned the flat top to bottom to stop himself thinking over it too hard. He knew that Ginny was at work all day and he hadn't gotten a response to his owl last night that he sent her.

Now he was standing at the top of the hill to a farmhouse that had him tilting his head to the side to understand how exactly it had been pieced together. It was one level placed on top of another on top of another; five floors high and had multiple chimneys coming out of every sloped roof that was half-hazardly added to it. Clearly it was held together by magic because no Muggle form of architecture would have allowed for it to still be standing. It reminded him of the game Jenga and he couldn't help thinking that one strong gust was going to make the whole thing topple.

"I had the same reaction when I first saw it," Remus chuckled beside him. "They kept adding on as they had more children. Arthur and Molly are not people of much means but they've done the best they could and their children all grew up to be wonderful people."

Harry nodded in agreement. All their boys had helped as much as they could have in the war and he was certainly a fan of Ginny.

They started walking down the hill towards the house and Harry took in the surroundings; they had a pond, a barn and a makeshift Quidditch pitch that were visible before a thick forest of trees that surround the perimeter of the property and shielded them from the view of possible Muggle neighbors.

The door to The Burrow opened before they got there and Mrs. Weasley was standing there beaming at the two of them. "Remus! Harry! So glad we could have the two of you over. We've been telling Remus he should bring you along for a while now young man," she said with a touch of scolding in her tone before she gave them both a hug in greeting.

Harry was surprised that she pulled him in but hugged her back regardless.

"Come on in. A few of the boys are here already and I've got the biscuits fresh from the oven. Arthur hasn't even arrived yet." She ushered them into the house and Harry followed behind Remus who guided him swiftly into the sitting area.

"Bill, Charlie," Remus greeting a few of the boys.

It had been a long time since Harry had seen either of the oldest Weasley brood and while it was easy to tell them apart he couldn't remember which one was named Charlie and which was Bill. He thought the broader one was who worked with dragons, but the slimmer one had a dragon fang hanging from his ear.

Thankfully Remus reacquainted them and introduced the beautiful blond woman that was hugging close to Bill's side.

"Good to see you all again," Harry said as he shook their hands.

"Oh, look at who it is!" said George who had just entered the room with a plate full of great smelling biscuits. "It's our hero!" he added with a fake swoon. "Isn't he just dashing? And gracing us with his presence! Well we are undeserving."

"George," Harry grinned. He'd gotten to know Fred and George well enough at the Order meetings that he didn't feel uncomfortable with George's teasing praise, warranted or not. Harry reached out for a biscuit but George swatted his hand away.

"No, no. You sit down, let us wait on you. I've been hoping for the chance to hand feed you," George teased.

"I can feed myself just fine thanks," Harry chuckled.

"It's not a matter of can," George rolled his eyes.

Just then Ginny came into the room looking worn out and hungry, also not too focused on her surroundings, just following her nose. "Oh good, you haven't eaten all of them yet," she said and snatched one of the biscuits off the plate, taking a bite before bothering to say hello to anyone in the room.

"There, can she feed you one? Maybe that was your problem with me doing it. Though I must say, I do look much prettier than her today," George looked at Ginny appraisingly.

Ginny wasn't bothered by what he'd said though and flipped him the bird before continuing towards a seat and sitting down with a groan. "I am so tired," she said rolling her neck to the side to work out a kink with her eyes closed.

Harry didn't think she realized he was there. And he also didn't think for one moment that George was prettier than her either. She was in workout clothes that looked to be clean, her hair was pulled up in a pony tail and she looked exhausted, but beautiful.

Nine days had been too long. Looking at her now he wasn't all that bothered if it turned out she was the reason he had been invited to dinner tonight. He simply felt a reassurance surge inside him that he very much wanted to continue seeing her.

Ginny's eyes opened again and she nodded at each of the other occupants in the room in turn as she took another bite of her food. "Remus!" Ginny exclaimed with a lazy smile when she finally saw him there. Remus gave a chuckle at her surprise and then Ginny nearly chocked on her food when she saw Harry.

That had not been a fake reaction. She must not have gotten his owl or been informed ahead of time by her family that he had been invited.

Her hand flew up to her mouth as she managed to chew the last of her food and swallow it down. "Harry," she croaked. "I… I didn't think Remus would ever manage to convince you to join us." It was a clever cover up for her reaction.

"You two know each other?" Charlie asked.

"We met when she was working with Remus at the Ministry a few weeks ago," Harry told them and took up on the loveseat closest to him. "It was Arthur, your dad, actually that invited me yesterday." He tried to pass an inconspicuous look at Ginny then and portray that he'd tried to warn her.

Her startled expression was masked with polite indifference now as she nodded.

"Oi," George nudged Ginny. "Move over with boy wonder there, I want to stretch out."

"You move," she bit back. "I'm exhausted and I sat down first."

"Boy Wonder, move over there," George said without missing a tick and inclining his head to the cushion beside Ginny.

"Erm… okay," Harry said uncomfortably and took up beside Ginny. She gave him an apologetic smile over her brother bossing him around.

"Sorry about them," she said.

"It's fine," he assured her.

After only a few moments of sitting awkwardly beside her George launched into a story about the newest product he was developing with his friend to add to their catalogue of joke items. That had the attention of everyone else in the room so Harry felt it was safe enough to whisper to her out the side of his mouth.

"I sent you an owl last night," he whispered.

"I missed it. Went to bed early and left without checking my mail this morning."

"Are you free tomorrow?" he asked her. He knew the Harpies had a game on Sunday but wasn't sure if they were practicing the day before it.

"Yes," she said breathlessly and he noted that there was some color creeping up her face. He felt pleased to have put it there.

"Hello Weasley's!" Arthur called out as he walked into the room. "Remus. Ah! Harry, glad you made it after all." He nodded at each of them and gave Fleur a kiss to her hand in greeting. "Who're we missing? Ron and Percy?"

"They'll be along soon enough," Mrs. Weasley said as she came into the room wiping her hands on her aprons. "Dinner is ready if you'll all come into the other room."

Harry was guided to a seat directly across from the one that Ginny found herself in and he took in the amazing spread of dishes before him; Roast Beef, Roasted vegetables, stuffing, salad, Yorkshire puddings. "Wow," he couldn't stop himself from exclaiming.

"Mum goes all out for our get togethers," Charlie told him and started filling up his plate.

"This looks amazing Mrs. Weasley," he told her. "Thank you again for inviting me."

She waved off his praise but looked pleased by it all the same.

Ron and Percy showed up as everyone had just filled their plates. Percy had brought a woman with him named Audrey who was clearly a familiar face at The Burrow.

As Harry was eating and enjoying the conversation around him about the WWW products and the rankings of the National Quidditch teams he felt something brush up against his leg. It gave him a start at first and then he caught Ginny's eye and slight smirk then realized it was her foot.

She was playing footsies with him. They were surrounded by her friends and family, trying not to let everyone know they were together and here she was being naughty right under everyone's noses.

He tried to focus on cutting up his roast beef but her leg was creeping higher and higher until her foot was almost resting on the chair between his legs. His body was growing warm and his thighs clamped together around her foot to stop her from continuing on the path she was headed. Getting aroused at her family's dinner table during his first visit there would not be a good idea.

He was also curious as to just how far she was willing to go using her foot to tease him with so he readjusted in his chair and moved his legs apart once more, giving her more room to work with. Across the table he saw her eyes twinkle mischievously as she picked up her glass of wine, carrying on her conversation with Charlie while she kept rubbing her foot up and down his inner thigh, working its way higher and higher, drawing small sloppy circles with her toes.

Trying to keep up the pretense that nothing was going on was not an easy task, but he managed to put a piece of food in his mouth and start chewing. He wasn't sure if it was the roast he was chewing on, he was too focused on what her foot was doing and just how close she was to landing him in real trouble.

Then her foot stopped rubbing him and moved quickly away. He glanced across the table at her to see that she'd sat straight up and was staring at her mother. "Did just you say you'd gone into Gladrags recently?"

Harry looked down the table and saw that Mrs. Weasley had one eyebrow raised and a knowing smile on her face as she regarded her daughter. "Why yes, I did. Ran into your friend Norma there. We had a nice little chat."

Ginny let out a groan. "So, you know."

"Know what dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked smugly. Clearly Harry was missing something important.

"Mum, it is much too soon for you to be inviting him to family dinner!" Ginny told her angrily.

"But not much too soon for me to witness what I did last Tuesday in the lobby of the Ministry?" Arthur said from the other end of the table.

Harry felt trapped. The Gladrags thing he could understand after that comment from her father and it was simple; they knew that he and Ginny were seeing each other.

"You saw that?!" Ginny said in horror, her mouth hanging open as she stared down the other end of the table at her father.

"I imagine several people sat that dear," Mrs. Weasley said placatingly. "If you were wanting to keep it from us for longer, I would have suggest not tounging him in public places."

"Oh, Merlin," Ginny put her elbows on the table and her face in her hands and Harry felt his face grow rather hot.

Arthur gave Harry a tight smile. They had been set up.

"I um, ahem," Harry cleared his throat. "The food is fantastic," he finished lamely.

Most at the table broke out in laughter at that and Harry couldn't help but join in after a minute with a weak smile.

"Wait, what's going on?" Ron asked.

"Ginny and Harry are seeing each other," Audrey told him without missing a beat. "They were seen snogging in the Atrium last Tuesday and Ginny's friend Norma confirmed it with your mother. Norma works at Gladrags." Audrey was telling him this matter of factly as she refilled her drink. "Your parents set this up to catch them out on it. Simple matter of deduction Ronald."

Harry could tell from that exactly why Percy was attracted to her. She and Percy would be two peas in a pod.

"Neither of you thought to maybe just ask me about it instead of luring him here under false pretenses? Or even just give me a bit of forewarning?!" Ginny exclaimed.

"So you could convince him not to come?" George asked her. "I think not."

Harry wasn't sure what he was meant to do right then. Staring at his plate seemed cowardly, but was he supposed to look every last one of them in the eye with some form of determination? That could be taken as hostility and regardless of few dates they'd been on he needed to make a decent impression.

"Please tell me it was like this for the two of you," he asked of Fleur and Audrey, looking for some kind of comradery from the other Weasley partners.

"You 'ave more of a chance zen I deed," Fleur told him. "Ze deed not like me when I first arrived."

"Dear, that's not true," Mrs. Weasley told her quickly.

Fleur simply did a spot on impression of Mrs. Weasley with the raised eyebrow and smirk.

"I was subjected to a round of questioning from each of them, however Percy and I had been further along in our relationship than the two of you," Audrey offered. "Then again, we weren't doing public displays of affection."

"Doubt they do them privately either," Charlie whispered in Harry's ear.

Harry had to bite his lip to stop from laughing at that from his nervousness. He couldn't help picturing Percy and Audrey at the end of the day simply climbing into opposite sides of the bed and giving a chaste kiss on the lips before turning out the light.

Ginny was still sitting with her head in her hands. It seemed she was restraining herself from lashing out at them completely.

"Why do I have more of a chance than you?" Harry asked as he turned back to Fleur, looking to give Ginny more time to compose herself.

"You deed save us all," she pointed out.

"Oh, right." He had forgotten that little detail for a moment.

"He's also way better looking than you," George told her. "We've got to keep our standards high for our siblings." He gave Harry a pat on the back.

Ginny's hands dropped back down to the table and she pushed back in her chair and stood up, exiting the room to head outside without saying another word.

"Think she might be angry?" Bill asked, smiling.

"How long have you two been seeing each other?" Charlie asked Harry.

"Erm, we've only gone on two dates… technically."

"Oh," Mrs. Weasley exclaimed looking startled. "Oh! I had thought… only two?"

Harry was comforted a bit by how Mrs. Weasley seemed remorseful about the situation she had just put he and Ginny in.

"She's been busy with work and so have I. This is the first time I've seen her in over a week," he explained.

The whole room settled down in silence, awkwardly continuing to eat their meal.

After a minute of that Harry couldn't take it anymore and pushed back from his seat. "I'm just going to go and check on her," he excused himself and followed the path Ginny had taken. He couldn't help but note just how gleeful Remus looked at the table as he refilled his wine glass.

The sun was setting and the light and shadows that it cast across the grounds made it hard to make out where exactly she had gone. He scanned his eyes up the hill, then over towards the Quidditch pitch and down to their pond in the distance. He made out her figure walking across the last stretch of grass to the pond and headed towards it.

He sat down beside her on the grass and said nothing, he wasn't sure what he could say while he tried to gauge just what kind of mood she was in by her expression. Her jaw was set and her brows were furrowed. She was angry, clearly, but also sad.

"I don't know where they get off," she growled. "Every last one of them keeps trying to push me to see this person and that and set me up. Then I finally do meet a nice guy and we get on, then they pull this! What possible outcome did they think would come of a surprise attack like this?"

Harry shifted uncomfortably; It was her family, what was he meant to say?

"I am so sorry, Harry," she said turning towards him and looking apologetic. "I swear I had nothing to do with this."

"That much was obvious," he told her truthfully. The look of horror on her face when she'd found out about her mother doing a bit of shopping at Gladrags had been honest.

"I swear I didn't get your owl," she continued. "If I had I would have told you not to come and simply dealt with their nosiness myself."

"I know that now too," he assured her.

She studied his face to see if there was any trace of blame that he was holding back. "You don't want to cut and run right now?" she asked sadly. "I wouldn't blame you if you did."

Harry's mouth dropped open. "What? No! I… I was shocked when I got the invite yesterday. And yes, I was wondering if you had something to do with it, but let's not forget that it was Remus who had been trying for months to get us together and he's basically one of my family."

"But if it's too much pressure now, I'll understand," her chin quivered as she said this but she was quick to still it.

"It's fine," he told her softly. "Not at all what I imagined for our third date, but-"

"This is NOT our third date," she told him forcefully.

Harry grinned at her for that. There was no way he was going to consider this a date. "Then maybe we should see about leaving and continue the evening together somewhere with less eyes watching us?" He leaned forward and gave her a kiss.

It was meant to be a brief kiss but when he pulled back she followed him and clasped her hand around his neck gently asking him to prolong it.

He was glad to acquiesce that request. He'd been missing the feel of her lips on him. The next thing he knew they were laying down in the grass and Ginny had rolled on top of him. He forgot where they were and the situation they were in for a few glorious minutes and simply enjoyed the feel of her again.

Eventually Ginny was the one to pull back. "I'll just go and tell them all we're leaving, shall I?" she asked out of breath.

"I'll come with you. Thank them for the lovely meal," he said with a wry grin.

Twenty minutes later they were back at his flat with a few cupcakes from the bakery just down the street from his place. Luna and Neville were at the flat as well and thankfully they were dressed.

"I guess it turned out alright," Neville commented seeing as Ginny was there with him and he was much more relaxed now than he had been when Neville had last seen him at breakfast. No doubt the extreme cleaning Harry had done to the flat was a big indication of just how worked up he had been as well.

"Can you believe my family just fucking ambushed us like that?" Ginny asked to Luna. "Norma let it slip to my mum and she gets it in her head to have dad invite him to dinner with the entire family!"

"I can believe it actually, your mother is quite keen for you to settle down and start a family. She loves you and wants you to be happy but doesn't like you playing Quidditch," Luna said to Ginny as she took a cupcake from the box they'd placed down.

"She doesn't want you playing Quidditch?" Harry asked Ginny incredulously. "Why not?"

"Because I'm a girl," Ginny said moodily and took a cupcake for herself as well before slumping down on their sofa.

"But… you're a professional athlete, on a Nationally ranking team! She must be proud of you!" Harry couldn't imagine the woman he had just met would be anything less than supportive of her daughter.

"She is," Ginny shrugged. "She just wanted me to follow in her footsteps is all."

"She didn't have a career?" Neville asked while peeling the paper off the bottom of his cupcake.

"Nope. Married straight out of Hogwarts and was knocked up by the honeymoon. Don't get me wrong, I love her, she did a great job raising all seven of us, but there is no way I'm going to want more than like… three kids, and not for quite a while yet."

Harry exchanged a look with Neville. First he was at her family dinner and now she's talking about how many kids she wants? The two things had nothing to do with each other, but for some reason he had these lines connecting dots in his mind that was causing warning bells to go off in his brain.

"What have you two been up to?" Ginny asked Neville and Luna.

"He took me out to a See-Ne-Ma," Luna told her. "It's a Muggle place where they have a giant screen that shows you a play that was done a long time ago. It is very well done. The music they played was very good. And the popcorn is particularly delicious."

"Oh! I've heard of those!" Ginny said. "Dean used to tell me about them. You can even get a smaller picture thing for inside your home and watch a bunch of different plays."

The boys gave a chuckle. They were a little more experienced with the Muggle technology thanks to Remus who had spent several years working in the Muggle world due to his condition.

"It's called a television," Harry told them. "I wanted to get one for the flat, but Neville keeps vetoing it."

"We need to get out and take in what the world has to offer, I don't see how watching people have adventures and fall in love on the television is going to help us with that," Neville defended.

"Maybe it could be for when we have girls over at our flat and want to give them a more intimate movie watching experience," Harry pointed out.

"Considering she's the first one you've actually brought back to the flat I'm not allowing for that to be your reasoning," Neville told him dismissively.

Harry gave him the two-finger salute and dug into his own cupcake. The cupcake itself wasn't outstanding, but the cream cheese frosting was delicious. He'd been craving one of these for a while. It looked like Ginny was enjoying hers.

He watched her distractedly while she ate and thought over what he'd just heard.

Three kids.

That was a lot.

He had given some thought about whether he wanted a family but he was years away from being ready for it, and he certainly hadn't decided how many kids he'd wanted when he was ready for that. Start with one, he supposed, then see what happened.

Three was still less than half of what she'd grown up with.

"My goodness I love this frosting," Ginny moaned. "Excellent choice," she told Harry and he only nodded in response.

Neville, Luna and Ginny carried on their conversation in a different direction but Harry found himself unable to contribute and essentially pulling away from the three of them with this new piece of information now rattling around in his mind.

It wasn't like she'd told him that she expected he would be the father. And it hadn't been her that invited him over to her parents house for dinner. He was trying to convince himself that she wasn't already picturing a white picket fence or something with him. And she'd been prompted into the kids question by Neville. Ginny had her heart set on becoming a first-string Chaser for the Harpies; there was at least three more years or something until then.

This wasn't going too fast between them. She wasn't asking him for a commitment. All this had come about because he'd kissed her at the Ministry.

It had been his own stupid move that brought this whole night about.

He liked her, enough to break his little rule about not dating witches. He couldn't start psyching himself out over this. He really wanted to get to know her more. All the time they'd spent together, save for the awkwardness today, had been great, he couldn't start reading into every little thing she said.

Ginny said something more to him, but he didn't catch it, he could only give her a small smile in response, but it was forced and she could clearly tell. The silence in the room stretched on a bit after that. Luna was looking around at the pictures on the wall, Neville was glancing between Harry and Ginny and Harry was focusing on his cupcake and stopping himself from meeting Ginny's gaze which would likely be one of confusion over how he was acting.

Maybe he should ask her to repeat her question? Claim he was in a small sugar coma?

"Well, I guess I'll just head home then. I'm pretty exhausted," Ginny stood up and popped her cupcake wrapper in the bin.

"Right," Harry stood up. "I'll, er, just see you later then? Tomorrow?" he asked.

Ginny cast a look over to Neville and Luna before looking back at him. "Um… sure. Right, yeah. Tomorrow." Her expression was dubious. "I'm going to use your Floo if that's alright," she gut her thumb over towards their mantle where they kept the tin of Floo powder.

Before he could get the word 'alright' out of his mouth she'd already gone over and thrown a pinch in the fireplace and spun out of sight.

Harry's shoulders sagged and he felt like a useless idiot.

"What the fuck was that?" Neville asked him.

Harry spun around to glare at Neville. Luna was still there, she was Ginny's best friend and flat mate. As if he could speak freely in front of her.

"Ginny was trying to talk to you and you just didn't answer. Where's your head at? You looked like you wanted to run away," Neville told him.

"Just.. just leave it," he muttered and went back towards his bedroom. "I'll see you later, I'm going to bed."

Too fast. It was all just too fast. He was too young to be with someone who's family was inviting him to dinner. Someone who had a future in mind that involved three kids. He hadn't planned that far ahead. He just wanted to go on a few more dates with her and see where things went.

Harry lay back on his bed and threw his arm over his face.

It could only have been about five minutes of him wallowing in self-pity before his bedroom door swung open hard enough that it banged against the wall. Harry didn't even bother moving, he had anticipated Neville would storm into his room owing to his girlfriend telling him to 'do something'.

"I don't want to hear it Neville," Harry groaned.

"I'm not Neville and you damned well are going to hear it," Ginny growled at him and slammed his door shut.

He sat bolt upright and saw her standing there in front of him. "You left," he said stupidly.

"Yeah, of course I left. You were being a prick and I didn't get it. I still don't get it. I didn't invite you to meet my family, I thought I'd made that pretty fucking clear. I didn't even know you were going to be there! Why did you agree to it when my father asked you? You ignored all the times Remus invited you over!"

"I, well, that's totally different," he defended.

"Of course it's totally different, you weren't fucking me then, where you?!" she yelled. "Now would have been the time to make up excuses about why you couldn't be there."

"How would that have looked in the future?"

"What future?" she demanded. "There was no call to make any kind of impression on them. No reason that you should have asked Fleur and Audrey what it was like for them when they were brought home. This isn't the same. We've spent two nights together, Fleur and Audrey were engaged to my brothers when they first were introduced. Argh!" she let out a growl of frustration. "Things were going fine. We were owling, and I'd been working on our next date plans because yours had just been so bloody perfect I was trying to compete, and now… now I don't even know what's going on."

She stopped and took a breath. "Are you just done with me? Can you tell me straight? You're obviously freaking out."

"I'm freaking out?" Harry asked loudly. "You've just stormed into my bedroom and raged at me."

Ginny said nothing, she just stared at him, her internal struggle over what to say next apparent through the way he was biting her lip and her expressive eyes were quickly looking between both of his own as though trying to read his mind.

Her whole body deflated then and her shoulders slumped. "Just tell me," she said sadly. "Are we done or what?"

She looked so truly upset by at the prospect that he might say yes and tell her to get out. It broke his heart a little to see her like that. He didn't want them to stop seeing each other. He'd convinced himself of that several times over today.

"No," he promised her. "No, I just. When you said you wanted three kids, after the dinner that we had."

Her eyes grew wide at that and she looked utterly shocked for a second until a smirk, of all things, came over her face.

"Let me get this straight," she prefaced with her hand held up before her. "You got all quiet and distant when we got back here because you thought I was planning out some future with you?" Her head cocked to the side in a way that showed she was rather unimpressed. "Excuse me, but where do you get off thinking that those kids I'm picturing in my thirties look anything like you?" There was an uptick at the corner of her mouth and he knew then that she wasn't angry with him anymore. "They are going to look like that new first string Keeper for the Wimbourne Wasps. Their team might need a bit of work, but that Chris Davis is a fine piece of arse. You, my mere mortal, are just my warm up."

"I'm a warm up, am I?" Harry asked, felling much more relaxed now she was joking with him about this. He felt a warming in his chest again as she stepped closer. This was how he liked to feel around her.

"Yes," she told him lightly before her eyes narrowed in on him again. "And if you want to keep being my warm up, I suggest you tell me what's bugging you next time instead of growing all broody and distant."

"I'm sorry," he told her softly and took a tentative step towards her. "I'd been in my head all day about the dinner. Hearing your potential future plans was sort of tipping the ice burg. It was stupid."

"Yes, it was," she said with another step towards him. "Glad we cleared that up."

Harry took another step towards her and placed his hands at her side. "Want to kiss and make up?"

"Only a little," she said playfully.

"Just a little?" he repeated.

"Well, the rest of me want's to head back to the Burrow and yell at certain individuals for being so presumptuous," she shrugged.

"How about we snog for thirty minutes or so, then you can go and yell at them?"

"Awe, is our first fight over then?" Ginny asked playfully.

Harry chuckled, "yeah. I'm sorry. Forgive me?" he asked. "That's the way these arguments are supposed to go, right? The man is the one that takes all the blame?"

Ginny just grinned in answer before she pulled out her wand, set a tempus alarm to go off in thirty minutes and then pulled him the rest of the way to her by his shirt.

()()()