Trying Again

I don't own 'Harry Potter'

The woman sat down next to him while slamming her glass on the table, scowling at the wooden surface as if its very existence offended her on a personal level. Harry thought the table should be glad that Gin couldn't set things alight with just her eyes. The phrase 'if looks could kill' seemed rather appropriate right now.

"What happened?"

She whipped her head around and glared ferociously, and Harry was quite glad he obviously wasn't the cause of her murderous rage given how fired up she seemed. Why people thought that his ex was a docile and sweet girl he'd never know. Not that he'd say that to her face. (Contrary to what Hermione thought, he didn't actually have a death wish.)

"What happened was that sexist wanker Andrew telling me I need to stop playing for the Harpies and start to settle down like a proper woman! The nerve of the bastard! Does he seriously think my only worth is putting my uterus to good use and popping out half a dozen kids for the selfish wanker?!"

As he listened to Gin rant and rave about her now ex-boyfriend, he had to wonder if the moron had actually had any brain cells to begin with. If Harry remembered correctly – not that he'd really been interested, truth be told – Andrew something or other worked somewhere in the DMLE and was the next Head of his family. As such he'd decided in all his infinite wisdom – or clueless stupidity – to tell the not very feminine, tomboyish, driven and independent Ginevra Weasley to become a housemother and give up her dream job.

(He wondered if he'd find a new occupant in St Mungo's if he went and looked.)

"Ugh, what did I ever see in him?" Gin griped while wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"I believe it had something to do with the amazing sex," he quipped while sipping his beer.

She rolled her eyes. "I was drunk and being far too generous." Gin blew air out her mouth as she seemed to finally lose steam and turned inquisitive brown eyes on him. "What about you and Bianca?"

Harry grimaced at the reminder of that god-awful date and gulped another mouthful of alcohol. "She was a fangirl."

"Ah."

"Yeah. Ah."

The less said about that the better.

It was fucking depressing that his love life was practically non-existent; he either ended up seeing women that were genuine but couldn't handle his horrendous work schedule, or they were happy with his work and were secretly obsessed with The-Boy-Who-Lived.

Life sucked, basically.

His love life sucked, work sucked a hell of a lot more than he'd anticipated, and it was lonely seeing his friends grow up, get married and have kids. Bloody hell, even Draco had a son now! Though Scorpius was ridiculously cute, and he always made sure to thank Astoria in front of Draco for saving the Malfoy family.

Just because he was thirty didn't mean pissing off Draco Malfoy had lost its entertainment value.

"I think I want to quit the Aurors."

Gin snorted. "I could've told you that years ago."

"Gee, thanks for sharing."

"You know what I mean," she huffed with a grin. "You're a stubborn arse that charges ahead no matter what anyone else tells you. You weren't going to quit without realising how much you hated it on your own."

Despite the woman quite happily listing his character faults without shame, he felt warmth flow through him at her candid attitude. She got it. Gin understood him, sometimes even more than Ron and Hermione. For all he loved his best friends they could annoy him to death sometimes. Ron was stubborn to a fault in his opinions and Hermione tried to mother him too much.

Gin let him be.

She accepted that he needed to do things a certain way, not because it was necessarily the right thing to do above all else, but because it was the right thing for Harry. She never nagged him, she'd quite cheerfully whack him over the head or shout at him if he was being stupid, but not once had Gin ever tried to control him. The woman accepted his personality and behaviour, warts and all, and she was easily one of his closest friends.

Though he kind of wanted to kiss her.

That's new. Or it had been a while, anyway. The first relationship they had was hormone-riddled and in a war, filled with uncertainty and naïve beliefs. They'd parted on amicable terms back when he was eighteen and they'd been great friends ever since, the two single buddies that their mates took the piss out of and tried to set up on dates. (Often to varying degrees of failure.)

Now, he could almost see the life they'd live together. Harry doing what he wanted for once, Ginny kicking arse on the Quidditch pitch as she loved to do, and the two of them maybe even having kids one day.

Well, he'd always be an impulsive Gryffindor in some way.

"Gin?"

"What?"

"Do you want to grab dinner together on Friday? A proper date?"

Brown eyes bore into his for a few moments before they lit up, a Slytherin-esque smirk taking over her face as she studied him with her chin resting in the palm of her hand.

"You're on, Potter. Once you've handed in those god-awful Auror robes, anyway. Who the fuck thinks reflective red is a good fashion choice?"

Harry snorted before he broke down laughing, tilting his head back and not giving one shit about his volume or the other patrons. He hadn't felt this free in a while.

Crazy woman. What am I getting myself into?

A/N: Hello people!

Firstly, I'm sorry I haven't updated this as regularly as before. Working full-time really skews your perception of time, and I honestly didn't realise it'd been a month since the last chapter. Time flies when you're having fun. Or when you're so exhausted you don't know which way is up lol.

Secondly, I know some people really don't ship Harry and Ginny, but that's the exact reason I did this. Because even I don't ship them, and to be honest I don't even like Ginny most of the time. I wanted to challenge myself with this by writing a couple I didn't enjoy in canon, and now I've written this I really wish that Ginny and Harry had taken a while to get together if they even did. But that's a rant for another day :D

I should be - fingers crossed and please don't jinx myself - uploading at least one more, possibly two chapters for this fic sometime in the next week. Hopefully. You probably shouldn't quote me on that XD

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Until next time!