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Chapter 16

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"You guys didn't have to go all out! I thought that it was just going to be a night out, clubbing and what-not. I didn't think it was going to involve a two night stay over somewhere at the beach!" Ginny gently protested as Demelza went through her closet and started packing her suitcase for her.

They had only just gotten off the Hogwarts Express yesterday and already she and her friends, whom had seen plenty of each other this past week while they lay around the Hogwarts grounds with nothing better to do than soak up the sun while they waited for their NEWT results to come in. (Ginny got top marks in everything except Ancient Runes where she got an Exceeds Expectations. She'd even taken the Herbology exam and passed with top marks without having attended the class, she'd just been helping her friends with it and figured 'why not'.)

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it. It isn't like we're spending a fortune here. Just pretend like we're all celebrating you lot being done with Hogwarts as well. Meanwhile, I still have one more year to suffer through and simply need a reason to have fun knowing that a lot of my friends won't be there next year," Demelza told her.

"You still have friends there!"

"Yeah, I do. But I really liked hanging out with you and the other girls in your year too. You were all a lot of fun. It's going to be really disappointing having to find a Chaser to replace you as well." She shut the suitcase with a flourish. "So, we are meeting up with everyone at my cousin's townhouse, don't worry, we'll have the place to ourselves, they have, like, three of them and are currently at the one in France and gave me permission to use this one. I've got the next day and a half interspersed with a few fun things for us to do."

Demelza was practically jumping up and down she was so happy with anticipation for their weekend of fun.

Ginny was excited too, but she'd only been home for about twelve hours and had only managed a few hours with Harry yesterday when he'd come over to The Burrow for her welcome home dinner.

He was going to be busy this weekend as well though, his mates had put together his stag night to fall at the same time. Demelza and Daniel had been owling back and forth about details so that the bride and groom wouldn't be missing each other too much.

Harry had Daniel, Sirius, James, two guys from his rec Quidditch team, Neville and Ron going to his stag night. Ginny figured it couldn't get too wild if Ron was going to be there, plus her future father-in-law.

"Where is it you're taking me?"

"Brighton, on the beach." She then shrunk Ginny's bag down so it would fit inside her purse and held out her hand for her to take. "And we're going by Floo right now."

"Lead the way," Ginny said and let herself be dragged downstairs.

"Have a good time," her father shouted out from the kitchen.

Ginny only managed to give him a small wave before she swirled away in a burst of green flames and soot to land in 'Robins Attic', which was a large sitting room with high ceilings and bright white walls. She had barely gotten her footing when she heard several women shout out 'Happy Hen Party' and there was a blast of confetti that went off and a sash put on over her head.

Hestia, Luna, Norma and Hermione were there along with Lily.

Ginny hadn't expected her future mother-in-law to be in attendance!

"Lily!" Ginny gasped.

"I hope you don't mind. I'm only here for the afternoon, I promise. Demelza told me what the event was going to be and I asked if I could join for it because it sounded so… adventurous."

"Adventurous?" Ginny repeated. She didn't know whether to be intrigued or worried.

"You'll have fun with it, I promise," Hermione told her as she handed Ginny a champagne flute with pink champagne.

"Alright," she grinned.

Demelza gave her a quick tour of the house and showed her where she would be sleeping, then everyone congregated back in the sitting room where there were appetizers and Lily entertained them all with stories of how James had attempted to woo her in school, then Hermione shared the absolutely terrible way that Ron went about showing her he cared for her and that had them all in stitches with how badly he'd done it.

After an hour of them talking there was the sound of a doorbell and Demelza jumped to her feet to go and get it and came back with a man with sandy blonde hair that looked to be around twenty-five years old.

"He isn't a stripper is he?" Ginny worried.

"Oh, he'll be stripping, but not dancing to it," Hestia grinned. "We're going to paint him!"

"You can call me Mauricio," he introduced himself as the girls started pulling easels and stools from the other side of the room, placing one stool in the middle. Mauricio, which was likely a fake name, began stripping down. "Would you like the pants on or off?"

Ginny was about to say 'on', but the other girls were quicker and louder than she was and off they went.

"This was what you wanted to attend for?" she asked Lily in a giggle.

"I've never painted a nude before!" she grinned. "I've tried doing flowers and landscapes and such, but this," she waggled her eyebrows, "is much more interesting."

They all set up at their stations around Mauricio and attempted to get some semblance of him onto the canvas before them. Ginny's looked utterly atrocious, she'd never painted anything in her life, the closest she'd come to painting was drawing with her colored chalk when she was a child.

It looked like there was a stick figure of a man with bubbles for biceps and legs.

After an hour, their time was up and Demelza offered Mauricio a drink before he left. Ginny went around to look at everyone else's paintings and all but Luna's were essentially the same thing she'd done; Luna's though, it was really good.

"How do you know how to do this?" she asked her best friend. "You even have shading and such!"

"I started off essentially the same way you did, then I filled it in. I've done plenty of drawings with daddy, you've seen them."

"Yes, but that was landscapes, and they are really good, but this is a person and you only had a hour to create it!"

The other ladies all gathered around to admire Luna's masterpiece.

"Well, this was lovely," Lily started, excusing herself from the rest of the weekend of fun. She enveloped Ginny in a hug. "I'll likely see you on Monday at some point. Have a good time this weekend."

"Thank you for coming! See what you can do to make sure Sirius doesn't get them all arrested, yeah?"

Lily laughed, "thus far he's managed to stay out of jail. I think I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. And, he's worked too hard on the wedding details to chance needing to report to the ministry on that day."

Ginny hoped that was true, but it wasn't like Sirius hadn't done anything illegal before, same with James, considering they had both been illegal Animagi for so many years before registering.

"These cracker things are good," Ginny told Norma after Mauricio and Lily had left.

"All the food is good, and we need to fuel up for the next part!" she grinned.

"Do I want to know?"

"We're making specialty drinks! A twist on the Gin Martini. Get it? Gin?" Norma let out a peal of giggles, clearly having enbibed enough alcohol already.

()()()

The next morning Ginny woke to the feel of her mirror vibrating under her pillow. They had all gotten back to the townhouse incredibly late last night, or super early this morning depending on how you wanted to look at it.

After they all learned the art of mixing 'her' specialty drink, they moved on to knicker making, which was not as easy as it could have been considering they were all sloshed.

Everyone wound up having a nap through dinner and then they were sober enough to get dolled up and visit a few clubs along the beach, dancing until dawn, her with the 'Bride' sash on and a tiara.

She didn't drink much while they were out but was still tired from the strange sleep schedule.

Ginny grasped the mirror and opened it.

"You aren't in a holding cell, are you?" she asked Harry in a raspy voice.

"No," he laughed. "Though it wasn't for lack of trying. Daniel and Sirius had us doing this sort of scavenger hunt around Edinburgh with a pub crawl and there was some trivia thing that I'm a little fuzzy on the details about."

"So, no strippers then?"

"With my father in tow? No, there were no strippers. You look like you had a crazy night out though."

Ginny looked around to see if there was another mirror, one that was actually a mirror, in the room anywhere but couldn't find one. She did find Norma and Luna cuddled up in the other bed though. They were still completely passed out so she got up and quietly exited the room.

"We're at this place south of London, Demelza's cousins place. It's really nice. And I did have a lot of fun last night, but I was making sure to drink plenty of water so I wouldn't feel disgusting this morning."

"Smart. Sirius had a few hang-over potions available for everyone when we got back to the manor. Ron stayed here last night. I remember him using quite a few exclamations when he saw the place."

Ginny could imagine. For all the times that the Potter's had been over to The Burrow, the only Weasley's that had been to Potter Manor were she and her father.

By now, Ginny had reached the bathroom and saw that the excessive amount of make-up that she'd let Hestia put on her last night had been smeared all over her face by the pillow last night.

"Feast your eyes," she joked to Harry, "this is what you'll be coming home to."

She could tell he gave a shrug, though she couldn't see it. "Just one more reason for us to shower together," he winked.

Ginny blushed.

She was really looking forward to the intimate part of their relationship going to that next level in only two weeks time. They'd already seen each other naked, but it was just going to be so lovely to be able to fall asleep and wake up beside him every night and for all avenues of intimacy to be open to them.

Just thinking about it made her warm all over.

And she could tell from Harry's reaction to her expression that he knew exactly what she was thinking about and had the same opinion about it.

Ginny cleared her throat as she grabbed a flannel and started wiping off her make-up. "And what are you going to be doing today?"

"Ron was talking about having a pick-up game of Quidditch at The Burrow with the twins. I think everyone was keen on that idea."

"Sounds like it will be fun. I'm pretty sure our plans over here involve finding a spot on the beach and seeing how many more freckles I can get before the wedding."

"That too sounds like fun. And I think I hear some movement in the hallway, so I'll let you get some breakfast. I'll see you tomorrow?"

They had a meeting with the officiant on Harry's lunch break and Ginny had plans of packing up some of her bedroom and making herself at home in Harry's, soon to be 'their', room while he was at work.

"Yes, I'll see you then."

"Love you." He had said it so casually, like it was the way he always said farewell, but it wasn't. In fact, that was the first time he'd said those words to her and it made her heart skip a beat.

()()()

"Love you too," Ginny told him with a blush before they both closed the mirrors.

Harry went to the bathroom and took a quick shower before getting dressed and heading down to the kitchen. He had assumed it was Sirius that had woken up earlier and he'd heard in the hall. Ron and Daniel had both kipped out in guest rooms and should be waking soon as well.

When he got down to the kitchen he saw his immediate family all sitting around, and there was a canvas painting propped up in a chair at the far side of the room, he couldn't make out what it was supposed to be that was drawn on it though.

"Morning all," he greeted them and moved towards it. "What exactly am I looking at?"

"That would be my poor attempt at painting a nude. It was the activity at the hen do yesterday that I wanted to join them for," his mum told him. His dad and Sirius were sniggering.

"What? You were all painting a picture of a nude person?"

"Mauricio," she said in a faux dreamy voice. "He was almost half my age and boy did he work out."

"Wait, there was actually some guy there parading around in his birthday suit?" Ginny hadn't told him anything about that!

"Don't worry, he was a professional and maintained his distance, and he left the same time as I did, with no time to attempt and woo your lady," she rolled her eyes. "It was fun though."

"Yeah, it looked like Ginny had a lot of fun," he said absently as he continued to look at the incredibly abstract attempt of a nude male model. "They'd gone out on the town last night and apparently they didn't just paint canvas, she had make-up smeared all over her face this morning."

"I assumed she would," his mum shrugged.

"Found it!" Ron exclaimed in victory as he walked into the kitchen. "This place is massive! Are you sure there's no female cousin of yours that I might be betrothed to? I don't care what her personality is like, that mattress would make up for it."

"I'll let Hermione know," Harry told him wryly.

"Or maybe I'll just invest in a new mattress," Ron said, quickly changing his tune. "Seriously though, nice place you've got here."

"Yeah, you said that a few times last night," Harry's father told him and handed over a cup of tea for Ron.

Initially Harry had wondered if he should have asked Daniel and Sirius to invite all of the Weasley men to the party, but Ron was the only one that he'd really connected with. He wouldn't have minded the twins being there, but with only one Weasley brother it meant there was less chance that he was going to be asked all kinds of inappropriate questions about what he and Ginny were going to get up to in the bedroom. From the few questions that he did remember from Sirius' trivia game, they'd all been based around the topic of sex too.

That would have been too awkward.

It was bad enough having to admit that he and Ginny were waiting until their wedding night. Sirius getting up from his seat in a pub to re-enact a few positions he'd shagged in was more than embarrassing.

"Did you talk to Ginny yet? How did Hermione like the night out? She didn't have a lot of girlfriends in school, I think Ginny was her closest."

"Sorry, I didn't ask. From what it sounded like though, everyone had fun."

"Hermione seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself before I left," his mum assured Ron.

"Good, good. I was hoping she'd have a good time. You should have seen the two girls that she shared a dorm within school, both of them were worshipers of Witch Weekly and they just didn't get on with her and her studious nature."

"I haven't heard her talk about any issues she had with them at school," Harry though aloud.

Ron gave a shrug, "why would she. The only thing she might bring up in conversation is how I wound up dating one of them before I realized I was mad for her." He shivered then, "it was horrible. I mean, I liked the snogging bit, but she called me Won-Won."

Everyone in the kitchen chuckled over that.

"I've heard from Sirius that your twin brothers got into quite a bit of trouble when they were at school, Ron," Harry's dad mentioned. "Did you get up to any mischief as well, or was Hermione in charge of keeping you on the straight and narrow?"

"No one got into trouble like the twins did," Ron stated with a heavy tone. "I don't know how they kept going after sitting through so many detentions with Snape. I only wound up having a handful of those, but the twins, whoa, at least once a month!"

"Well, the students won't have to worry about that anymore," Harry's mum said. She was now looking through the Daily Prophet.

"Excuse me?" Ron, Sirius and his dad all said at the same time.

She took a turn giving each of them a smirk. "I found out just before the end of term, now I see it's official; Severus Snape has resigned." She held up the Daily Prophet for them all. Harry was too far away to see it, but it must have shown the advertisement for the posting that needed to be filled.

"Good, he was miserable to Ginny," Harry said, as the others were still looking in a state of shock. "He wasn't very nice to me when I was there either."

"Well, I had words with him a while back," his mum continued. "It was obvious to anyone that he didn't like children, he didn't like teaching either, so I asked him why he was still there; it seems he was trying to, ahem, redeem himself in some way, shape or form. Or perhaps punish himself for his poor life choices," she rolled her eyes.

"You should have moved back here sooner and told him to bugger off out of Hogwarts," Ron told her. "I wish he'd have been gone by my sixth year at least, then maybe I'd have made it into NEWT Potions. Only reason I managed an Exceeds Expectations was because of 'Mione. Snape was dreadful at teaching."

"And I as much as told him that. Looks like he finally started listening to me. It only took him twenty years," she raised her tea cup at Ron in cheers.

"Hold up," Sirius started.

"Yeah," his dad jumped in, "you told Snivillus to quit?"

"And he listened?" asked Sirius.

"Not in so many words. I just pointed out to him that there was a whole world outside of Hogwarts, and he should set about seeing it instead of being miserable where he was and trying to drag everyone else down with him. Except that last part was more of an implication."

Ron was shaking his head, but Sirius still looked stunned and his dad looked... relieved.

Daniel found his way to the kitchen not much later and they all enjoyed a nice fry up, Sirius and his dad still peppering his mum with questions about the former Potions Professor, before Harry showed his friends into the basement. Ron went gaga over the bar area and Daniel was more interested in the workshop.

"Yeah, I was getting restless and wound-up giving wand making a try," Harry explained when Daniel was looking over his most recent work area. "My ancestors had left some of the supplies but in my reading I had discovered that the core of the wand, if not properly encased right away, it would lose some of its potency," Harry was telling him.

"Thinking of a second career as a wand maker?" Daniel asked and held up a first attempt of Harry's that he'd used the supplies that had been left in the workshop to make.

Harry took the wand from him; it wasn't dangerous, it may as well have been a toy wand for a child with all the ability it had. "This one was so I could figure out how to get it to mold properly. And, it's just a hobby right now. Maybe I could do something with it later, and it might have some application that would cross over to ELM, I just don't know what that is yet."

"Your family doesn't expect you to stay there forever, do they?" Ron asked, as he had just found them. He took a good look around the room.

"No, I like the idea of it though. I just want to have an escape from it too."

"My escape is trying to find a lady friend," Daniel told them with a wink.

"Mine is cooking," Ron admitted. "My mum was a really good cook and I sort of took that over when she passed. More so once I was done with school. She had all these cookbooks around the kitchen, but I never saw her open one. I think she got them all as presents but stuck with what she knew and went on instincts."

"So, are you any good at it?" Daniel asked him.

"Haven't had any complaints yet. Got a few compliments though. Hermione likes what I make for her well enough, and that's good because she's crap at domestic things. Don't tell her I said that," he added.

"Any wedding bells in your future?" Daniel asked Ron.

Ron's ears went red. "I think I've got another year or two before I have to worry about that. It isn't like we all have a clock on it," he nodded to Harry.

"Clock?" Daniel asked.

Harry gave Ron a look, because Daniel didn't know that he was getting married so young due to a betrothal contract. And so, he told Daniel the story. By the time he'd finished they were all standing around the billiards table and playing a game.

"I had no idea!" Daniel exclaimed softly. "You would never know it was arranged to see the two of you together."

Harry was pleased to hear that. "Thanks. And I guess we were just lucky."

"I told her last summer that I didn't think it would be the worst thing if you two couldn't find your way out of it," Ron commented.

"Did you know that we were really close to being able to nullify it?" Harry wondered. Ginny hadn't told him if their impulsivity story had got back to her brothers or not.

"How close?"

"Like if we'd have been able to keep our hormones in check for another twenty minutes type of close."

"What?" Daniel laughed.

Then Harry told them the story of the solicitor that looked like he wanted to quit his job then and there at the kitchen table because they'd just kissed, leaving out the 'and more' aspect of it for Ron's sake.

"Anyhow, I appreciate you telling Ginny that," he said to Ron. "We were both in need of an advocate then, mine was Sirius. I think my mum was a bit more okay with it after she'd met Ginny too."

"You saying your dad didn't like Ginny?" Ron had a bit of an angry tone under his question.

"No, I think he was more focused on being angry that his great-great-grandfather would do up such a thing. He likes Ginny, they get on great. They're all pleasantly surprised at how things turned out. Me more than anyone else."

"Any worries then?" Daniel wondered as he lined up his next shot on the table.

Harry exchanged a glance with Ron, he hadn't gotten into the whole 'baby' portion of the contract. And he did have worries, worries about what kind of a dad he would be, how he was going to juggle work and a wife and changing nappies. Worried that Ginny would wind up taking on this whole new personality when she was pregnant. He'd already seen her get completely worked up over him mentioning them eloping and making him guess why she'd been mad at him, and he was sure that her being pregnant and uncomfortable would make her have mood swings as well.

He was also worried that she would fall out of love with him and they would wind up trapped in their marriage.

"Just… just normal stuff I guess. I'm hoping that she and I will stay as happy as we are together currently, but who knows. The longest amount of time we've spent together was over her Easter break, and that was wonderful, but it also had an end date."

"I don't think your concerns are any different than the ones I've had with Hermione, and we've been together for three years," Ron assured him. "And, as someone that's lived with Ginny for seventeen years, you've probably already seen her at her best and at her worst."

The casual manner with which Ron told him that helped break up the weight that he'd been feeling grow in his stomach. He'd had these concerns about what their future would look like for the past ten months, and they hit him at different times. Now, with the wedding less than two weeks away, he was glad that he'd invited Ron to the stag night and to stay over. It helped hearing that Ginny was what she seemed, that there was no front that she was putting on until all was said and done and she'd moved in.

He felt like he knew her. As in, knew her, but it had only been ten months since they'd met.

Harry wasn't interested in carrying on anymore conversation about the wedding or marriage though, so he turned the conversation to Quidditch and Ron and Daniel were soon discussing the differences between the American and British teams.

()()()

They both blew out a breath and took a deep inhale of the fresh air once they'd left the officiants office.

"I knew it wasn't only going to be just contract signing and such," Ginny started.

"Yeah, but it was the questions," Harry picked up wearily and rubbed his eyes. "I had no idea it would be so involved."

He looked at his watch. Ginny knew he only had a bit of time left before he had to go back to work. She'd hoped it would be a quick 'hello' they had to give to the officiant, but it wasn't. His name was Warren Tedrick and he'd been officiating weddings for decades and had very specific questions for them, about their personality types, their expectations, their financials and how that would play a role in their marriage.

They had been valid questions, were it not that they had to get married regardless of whether their personalities lined up properly or not. According to the officiant though, their personalities did line up nicely, but if they hadn't, they were still going through with the wedding.

Ginny hadn't been prepared for it all and judging by the look on Harry's face when he turned to her after each one of the questions, he was as surprised as she had been.

"He barely even touched on the vows," Ginny said, more to herself.

"I guess that part is more cut and dry. 'Do you want to use ours or write your own?'," he mimicked the voice of the officiant almost spot on.

"You're still okay with us just repeating his, right? Because I love you and all, but I feel like it would be too cheesy to write our own."

"That's fine," he told her quickly. "I just still want him to leave out the 'obey' part of it. It's too archaic."

"I'm glad for that," she chuckled. "I'm not exactly the obedient type. My mum was the ruler of the roost so I've got her influence."

"Then maybe the 'obey' part was more about me," he smirked.

"Still no need," she brushed it off with a wink at him, "I'm sure I'll have other ways of convincing you to do what I ask without you making that promise."

They both grinned at each other.

"Can you stay at the manor tonight?" he asked.

"How about you come and stay at The Burrow tonight?" she suggested. "You've never stayed over there before. It's a bit more chaotic than at the manor, but I'd like to enjoy my last few days of living there as much as I can."

There was a micro expression of a cringe that came across his face.

"I know it isn't as big, or as clean as the manor," she rolled her eyes. "And we won't have a private bathroom, plus there are three of my brothers that are within shouting distance. But I do want to fall asleep beside you again and I don't want to miss out on any more Weasley breakfast craziness than I have to."

"Alright," he gave in, reluctantly, and gave a kiss to her forehead. "I guess being cuddled up on that tiny bed of yours will make up for the shared bathroom situation."

"Posh bastard," she teased.

He gave her another kiss, this time on her lips. "Alright, any longer and I'm going to be late. I'll see you tonight at yours then."

They waved farewell and he went to the closest alley to Apparate back to work.

Ginny took in a deep breath of the 'fresh' London air. The office they had just visited was in a Muggle part of London and there was a steady stream of vehicles moving past her on the road. Now she had the whole afternoon stretched out before her that she would be spending on her own. She reached inside her bag and pulled out the list of things that Sirius had written down that needed to get done before the week was up.

- Dress fitting

- Thank you notes

Those were the only things left. Her final dress fitting and picking out Thank-you note stationary then she had the rest of the week with nothing to fill her days but flying.

She'd borrowed Harry's broom to practice with. Her Cleansweep was good, but there was a chance that she might be given a different broom to do the try-outs with and she needed to figure out the tricks on the Nimbus just in case.

She was entirely convinced that there was no way that she would be handed a Firebolt at try-outs, even though that was what all the major teams played with.

In all her research about what try-outs were like she'd determined that the scouters and representatives that attended the National Try-outs all wanted as much visibility as possible, thus no Firebolts because they were too fast to see, and they would want a level playing field, so the assumption that she might be given an upgrade when she showed up with her Cleansweep was logical. There was also the chance that a player would have added charms to their broom that would make them stand above the rest when they really weren't.

When she'd talked with Sirius over breakfast this morning, with the twins, as it was actually their business meeting she'd invited herself into when she'd sat down with her breakfast, she'd wondered how much free time he thought she might have to train before the wedding, and Sirius had been slightly taken aback. He said he didn't know whether to be impressed or concerned that she was more worried about Quidditch try-outs than her wedding.

The wedding was just one day though, and he seemed to have everything under control. Yes, she was hoping it would be lovely and something that her mother would have wanted for her, but so long as she and Harry were married by the end of next Saturday, the rest of it, flowers, tablecloths, rentals, etc., it didn't bother her much. If she'd learned anything from her twin brothers over the years it was that you sometimes had to be responsible for your own fun, and if she wasn't having any fun at the wedding, they could invent some on the spot. And it wouldn't be hard; If everyone simply wound up in the basement playing billiard and treating the bar and empty dance room into some kind of 1930's American speak-easy, then that would be great fun for her.

She recalled this as she wound her way through Muggle London towards the fashion district that had the dress shop in it and through the separate entrance with stairs leading up to the Wizarding entrance. It was only a few moments later that she was standing in front of a full-length mirror once more with the gorgeous white dress on, feeling like a princess despite her messy hair, chipped nail polish and lack of over the top make-up. It was like the gown itself was charmed to make her glow.

Unfortunately, she had to take it off after only admiring herself in it for five minutes while the seamstress made sure that it all fit her properly, after the fitting it was getting sent to Potter Manor to hang in the guest room Sirius had turned into wedding central.

It was still an hour before she was able to Apparate home though.

"You look a little cross-eyed there, Gin-Gin," Fred greeted her.

"Urgh, stationary. I mean… who cares?"

"I cares! I expect only the best kind of parchment paper with gilded accents in thanks for my gift, thank you very much."

She shook her head at him and bit her tongue. She didn't want to guess what his gift might be, but hoped it was a fireworks display, because that would be a great gift but if she said something about it, he might feel tempted to change the gift to something else.

"Tell me about your day. How's the business building going with Sirius?"

She sat at the table and listened as he launched into the planning and product testing and manufacturing that he and George had been getting up to. They'd wound up using Ron's old room, after he'd moved down into Percy's room, as their lab and storage because it had the added storage space in the attic. Granted, they had needed to isolate the ghoul so he wouldn't be able to accidentally light the whole house on fire, but Fred assured her that the ghoul was a big fan of his new trunk room since they'd enhanced the space on the inside so he could roll around all he wanted, plus there was a silencing spell on it now.

"Why didn't we do that ages ago?" she wondered.

"Because Dad is soft on all creatures and all the noise he made banging on pipes and such meant that we could blame him for half the noises that we were making as well."

"Solid logic," she nodded. "Then where exactly has Sirius been coming in on all of this?"

"Well, dearest Poppet, he has all the business savvy. You know he's had a heck of a lot of career paths."

"Yeah, Harry's told me. There was a bar he owned, he did tours for tourists, joined a Quidditch team, done event planning, and… that's all of them that I can remember."

"Well, in all those careers he's really learned about the numbers side of the business and he's been walking us through making contacts with various suppliers and getting pricing figured out all the while helping us find a place to actually launch the business too."

"And?" What she really wanted to know was if this venture of theirs was anywhere near fruition.

"And…" he grinned at her, "you aren't the only one that will have some celebrating to do this summer!"

"This summer?! Does that mean you've found a place?"

"Oi, you told her?" George asked as he came down the stairs with something glittery in his hair that looked like it had wound up there by accident.

"I didn't tell her where."

"Well, come on!" she encouraged eagerly.

"There's a place in Diagon Alley that we've just signed the lease with, along with Sirius," George told her, grinning like mad.

"Diagon Alley?!" The lease on those shops must have been astronomical. "Just how much is Sirius helping you out financially?"

"As much as we're comfortable with," Fred assured her. "The startup costs are a lot, but with us planning to be open before all the kids start in on their back-to-school shopping, and the Owl Order Catalogues that we're going to be stuffing into all the bags leaving the shop, we expect to be resting comfortably."

"Well, it can't just be the three of you running the shop, you'll need some extra help, right? You've budgeted for extra staff?"

"Looking for a job, are you?" Fred teased.

But Ginny just stared at him, struck by the prospect. They're getting the shop up and running would require a lot of extra help, and she'd been trying to think of something to keep her busy over the next year before she could follow through with her Quidditch dreams.

"I… I could help."

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