Chapter 3

At the top of the stairs, Harry found the door was shut, but thankfully not locked. Ginny had known he would follow her; she had had the good sense to realise that he wouldn't let a locked door prevent him entry back into her home.

Harry reluctantly pushed the door shut behind him, glad even after only the few minutes he had been in the freezing cold garage, to be back in the cosy warmth of the flat. He was not looking forward to the coming conversation, but he knew that there was no way that he could leave to inform the Weasleys that he had found their daughter and sister, and spring the presence of a granddaughter and niece on them without knowing the little girl's history.

Harry sighed as he bent to pick up the mackintosh that had been hung up clumsily and had fallen off a coat hook attached to the wall near the door. If the truth were known, he was burning with curiosity himself… and something more. The desire to find out the paternity of this child was already eating away at him but that curiosity was tinged with… what… regret? Sadness?

Ginny Weasley, the bright-eyed, fiery-haired little girl he had first seen at King's Cross Station just over nine years ago, and who was a year younger than him, was a mother. She had been a mother by the looks of her daughter for three odd years. Harry was no child expert, but the quick glimpse he had had of the little girl before she had buried her head against Ginny, made him think she was older than Guy, who would be two in January. Guy was at least as big as this child, but Harry thought this little one looked more mature.

With a sense of unease, and knowing that there was no way that he was going to avoid upsetting Ginny, Harry turned to face the sitting-room. He was rubbing the back of his neck uneasily but he stopped when he saw that Ginny wasn't in the room. It was only a second before he saw that a door in the wall behind the sofa stood ajar and he could hear Ginny's quiet, comforting voice as she crooned to her daughter.

Without stopping to think, Harry crossed to the door and slowly pushed it open. He did not enter the room, but stood and watched Ginny as she sat sideways on a single bed, one leg bent on the covers, dressing her grizzling daughter. The child stood on the bed in nothing but a singlet, her little bottom bare, holding onto her mother's shoulders for balance while she lifted first one tiny leg and then the other as Ginny dressed her in a pair of pink fleecy pyjama pants with Tinkerbell dotted all over them.

Ginny saw Harry immediately and other than a brief flash of something in her chocolate eyes that could have been anger or—was it his imagination—anguish, she said in the same tone with which she had been speaking to the child, "Will you wait in the other room?"

She did not draw her daughter's attention to the stranger in their midst—the child's back was to the door—and Harry, not wanting to cause the little girl to become anymore upset, moved away from the door.

It was about fifteen minutes before Ginny left the bedroom. All was now quiet; the child had obviously settled. Harry was in the kitchen, leaning forward with his hands clasping the edge of the bench; he watched as Ginny slowly shut the door and crossed the small sitting-room to stand opposite him on the other side of the bench. Harry straightened and pushed one of two cups filled with steaming tea towards her.

Ginny stood for a second, her arms wrapped tightly around her thin torso and her hands gripping handfuls of the horrible green jumper. She didn't look at Harry, but kept her eyes fixed on the closest cup. She stayed perfectly still for a minute before unclasping one hand and reaching out for the tea. She wrapped the other hand around the cup, the too-long sleeve of her jumper shielding her skin from the hot china.

Ginny turned away and walked to the sofa. She did not sit down but stood facing the bedroom door, sipping the tea. Harry remained silent, standing in the kitchen, the bench an island, separating them. He could tell how tense she was by the set of her shoulders; he would leave it up to her to break the silence.

She didn't. Not for several minutes; the only sound was Ginny taking noisy little sips of the very hot drink. Finally, Harry saw her square her shoulders and he prepared himself for whatever she had to say. She turned around to face him. Something inside Harry's chest expanded to the size of a brick. He looked at Ginny standing there, trying to look brave and defiant, but actually looking like she would like nothing better than to be able to climb into a hole and pretend that he had never seen her in that café. She had always been tiny, but now, she just looked so fragile… like spun glass… easily shattered. She looked like a little girl. Way, way too young to be a mother.

"So Harry," said Ginny, trying to look and sound nonchalant but not fooling Harry for an instant, "do you think that my mother would still welcome me home with open arms if I had my daughter in my arms and no wedding ring on my finger?"

Harry frowned. He knew that Molly was a very moralistic person who had always been ultra-strict with her children. The boys had all been very careful never to flaunt the real state of their relationships with their various girlfriends anywhere around their mother. Molly was happy thinking that her sons were virtuous young men… thinking that they were all innocent until they had put a wedding ring on their girlfriends' fingers.

Yes, she was naïve–or else she was just very good at burying her head in the sand. Harry had noticed over his years of living in the Wizarding World that it did not move as quickly as the Muggle world did with its lax moral attitude of the last forty or fifty years.

Magical couples did not live openly together before they were married. That was not to say though, that most young wizarding couples didn't do what their Muggle counterparts did, and with enthusiasm… they just accepted the need to keep their sexual exploits clandestine.

Harry had seen first-hand the lengths that Ron and Hermione went to, to keep Molly in the dark as to the level of their intimacy. Ron lived with Harry at twelve, Grimmauld Place, and Hermione still officially lived with her parents. Most of the time though, Hermione stayed at Grimmauld Place.

Harry had given Ron and Hermione the master-suite and Hermione had been able to use a small, old-fashioned dressing room for her belongings; she locked it with a very complicated charm. Molly had checked out Ron's bedroom when he had first moved in and Harry had told her that he didn't know what the door led to, and that no one had ever been able to open it. Molly had expressed surprise that Ron had the master-suite but Harry had told her he was perfectly happy with Sirius's old room, and Ron had told his mother that he had chosen the big room because his bedroom at the Burrow had been so small and this was a real novelty for him.

The master-suite had never been used whilst the Order had made use of Grimmauld Place and the Weasleys had lived there.

Harry had felt bad about pulling the wool over Molly's eyes and Ron and Hermione had also expressed guilt. But Ron figured as long as his mother was happy in her ignorance, then their subterfuge wasn't hurting anyone. Ron was not willing to give up his sex life now that he finally had one, and it would not matter to Molly that Hermione was just as happy with the arrangement as her fiancé was.

Yes, Harry realised that Molly had always been very strict with her children… and now that he thought about it, perhaps more so with her only daughter. But Harry was absolutely convinced that Molly would want her daughter back, even if she was encumbered with quadruplets, born outside the sanctity of marriage.

"Yes," he finally said, "I do."

Ginny stared at him incredulously. She opened her mouth, but was apparently too flabbergasted to get any words out. She lowered herself onto the sofa and raised the cup to her mouth again. Harry saw that her hand was shaking slightly.

"Ginny, your mother aside, you must surely know that your father would never, never reject you, no matter what you had done," said Harry.

Ginny shook her head. A little tea slopped over the side of her mug but she just transferred the cup to her other hand and wiped the moisture off on her jeans. "Dad just goes along with Mum," she whispered, her voice thick.

Harry picked up one of the dining chairs and carried it into the living room; he put it down far enough away from Ginny not to spook her. He knew if he sat on the couch, she would not like it; she was as skittish as an unbroken horse.

Harry took a deep breath. "Gin… you ran away at the end of your fifth year..."

Ginny wrapped her other hand tightly around her mug; her knuckles were white. She was becoming more nervous and upset; this subject seemed to be even more distressing to her than the subject of her family.

"You and Dean Thomas were an item for most of that year." Harry paused, worried about how blunt he was going to sound. He took another deep breath. "But somehow I don't think Dean is your daughter's father."

Ginny jumped up and stalked into the kitchen, determined, it seemed, to keep as much space between them as she could. She turned on the tap very hard and began to wash her mug with much more attention than it warranted. Harry sighed; he felt like he was walking on eggshells, but he couldn't stop now. He stood up and followed her into the kitchen where she was now trying to wash the pattern off the china.

Harry reached past her and turned the tap off. Ginny went rigid for a moment, but then her head and shoulders drooped and she just stood immobile, her hands still holding the mug. Harry took the mug out of her unresisting hands and placed it in the dish drainer, then he hooked a tea-towel, turned Ginny around and thrust it into her wet hands.

Harry put his hands on Ginny's thin shoulders and bent down slightly so that they were eye to eye. "Talk to me Ginny."

Ginny just stared into the green eyes that she had fantasised about since she was ten years old. Why had those beautiful eyes never seen her though –seen her in a romantic light? She knew she had been reasonably attractive back when her life had been relatively care-free… back in the days when her biggest worry had been why Harry Potter was indifferent to her charms.

Well, he seemed to be interested in her now, but for all the wrong reasons. He was interested in her because she was necessary to make her family whole and content again. She was Ginny Weasley, one of the Weasley clan –not allowed to be a separate entity, even if it was her wish to be so.

"You're wrong Harry," said Ginny, her voice flat. "My mother would never live down the shame of having a granddaughter born on the wrong side of the blanket."

Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Ginny shook her head a little wildly and pushed past him. When she had put the bench between them again, she spun around to face him, her arms spread wide, her palms uppermost. "Please allow me to know my mother better than you do, Harry. I grew up with her." She drooped, pulling the ratty cuffs of her sleeves down over her hands before crossing her arms defensively over her chest again, her shoulders hunched. "I was always expected to be the perfect daughter. She set the boys up as spies when I went to Hogwarts. Percy revelled in it. I think he wrote home at least every second day to report on me."

"What did he have to report on?" asked Harry. You were practically invisible, you were so quiet."

"I might just as well have beeninvisible," muttered Ginny bitterly, turning away from the object of her old heartache. In a louder voice, she said, "He didn't have any bad behaviour to report on because I was a good little girl in first year. Of course, Tom Riddle was leaching the life out of me, so that might have accounted for that." She threw herself dejectedly down onto the sofa.

"Mum's heart-rending sobs in McGonagall's office after the Chamber of Secrets was not the end of it, believe me. Oh, don't get me wrong. She was devastated and her relief when I walked through the door was real. I know that Mum loves me, Harry, but she expects higher standards from me than parents have a right to expect from their children.

"When I got home at the end of term, I think the first two weeks of the holidays were taken up with angry lectures about how foolish I had been. And when she had run out of admonishments, I got the air of icy disapproval and disappointment. And this continued the whole time we were in Egypt. I had a miserable time.

"Dad tried to step in on my behalf once or twice, but that only led to Mum giving him the silent treatment."

Harry didn't know what to think. He had had no idea that any of this had happened. He found it very hard to believe, but Ginny obviously believed it. There had to be something there as far as Ginny was concerned, because she had run away from her whole family rather than wait to be kicked out by her mother when she discovered that her daughter had committed the unforgivable sin of falling pregnant in her mid-teens.

Harry decided to change tack. "Does the father know he has a daughter?"

Ginny stiffened and turned away; she stared fixedly at the garments hanging on the coat hooks. Harry saw a muscle working in her jaw. "You don't have to get all indignant on the father's behalf, believe me, Harry. The father would have absolutely no interest in knowing he has a daughter."

"How can you possibly know that?" asked Harry, feeling slightly miffed on behalf of the unknown man who did not know he had a child; who had never had the opportunity to acknowledge his daughter.

"Because," Ginny hissed venomously as she spun around and advanced on Harry so that he fell back a step, "I am Bonnie's mother, and my family are Gryffindors and blood-traitors."

Harry's eyes widened, but not as much as Ginny's did. Her face became paler than it already was; she looked absolutely horrified and she rushed into agitated speech. "I don't want to talk about this anymore, Harry. Please, I beg of you, do not tell my family that you have found me."

"Ginny, how, in all conscience, can I not?"

Ginny took Harry's hand in both of hers and pulled it to her chest. "I know that you look on the Weasleys as family, Harry, and you would feel like you were betraying their trust if you do not tell them." Ginny's eyes were pleading as she gazed directly into Harry's. "But I am a Weasley too, and you will be betraying me if you don't do as I ask."

Harry felt his face heat when Ginny had grasped his hand in desperate supplication. He tried to speak past his swollen tongue but Ginny rushed on. "Harry, I ran away to spare myself the heartache of having my mother cast me aside. If she casts me aside now, my daughter will also be cast aside and she will not understand why she is being rejected."

Harry pulled his hand out of Ginny's strangely hot grasp and turned away. All of a sudden, he felt unsettled standing so close to her. What she was asking would be almost impossible for him, but nor could he ignore her final words.

He could not believe that Molly would reject her daughter after the long years of wondering what had happened to her and being afraid that she was probably dead. But after what Ginny had told him this evening, could he take the chance? No, not when an innocent child could be hurt along the way.

Silence held court for several minutes as Harry paced back and forth, his head lowered in thought. Ginny watched him anxiously. When Harry finally faced her, her eyes were wide pools of fear and hope.

"I won't say anything…" Ginny's wan face lit up. "But…"

The happiness dimmed a little. "But what?"

"But I am not going to go away, Ginny. I will keep coming around and I will keep chipping away at your stubborn hide, or pride, or whatever it is keeping you away from your family."

Ginny's lips had pursed in a disgruntled line. But instead of the diatribe Harry was expecting, Ginny heaved a deep sigh before walking into the kitchen and opening a cupboard. "I didn't think I'd get rid of you that easily, Potter." She turned around, her hands grasping two tins which she held up for Harry's inspection. "Baked beans on toast, okay?"

Harry blinked. Ginny raised a shapely auburn eyebrow. "You hadn't eaten before you accosted me in the café, had you?"

"Err… nooo."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm starving. Sorry I can't offer you anything else." Ginny had pulled a can-opener from a drawer and was concentrating on fitting it to the edge of one of the tins."

Harry hurried forward and put a hand over the top of the tin, halting the delicate operation. Ginny looked up, a crease forming between her brows. "What? Baked beans not good enough for you?"

Harry ignored the jibe. "I'm sure you couldn't have forgotten that I love baked beans. I ate them regularly in your presence at the Burrow, and at Hogwarts."

"Well…" said Ginny, looking pointedly at Harry's obstructive hand.

"I've got a better idea," he said. As you weren't expecting a guest for Saturday dinner, I think I should treat you. How does fish and chips sound?"

"But…"

"No," Harry said. "I insist. I know we passed a fish and chip shop on the way here."

"But that's ten minutes away. They'd be cold before you got back with them."

Harry shook his head. "Ah, Ginny… you might have forgotten you're a witch, but I haven't forgotten I'm a wizard." Ginny's mouth dropped open as Harry spun around and Disapparated with a soft pop. Her mouth had only just closed when another pop announced his reappearance. She gave a little squeak of fright and immediately looked angry with herself.

"Sorry," said Harry. "But will Bonnie be wanting anything to eat?"

Ginny was taken aback, but she immediately wondered why she should be. She remembered that Harry Potter was unerringly kind and thoughtful. It would be perfectly normal for him to consider the needs of a child he had had no knowledge of two hours ago.

"No. Faith gave her an early dinner." Ginny sighed. "I doubt she ate much. She usually doesn't when she's unwell." Before Harry could say anything else, Ginny added, "She won't wake up again… not for food anyway."

Harry Disapparated again.

~HPGW~

Harry pushed the front door of number twelve, Grimmauld place closed and leaned back against it. He was exhausted. The evening had been fraught, and though the meal he had shared with Ginny had been reasonably free of tension, the outcome of their totally unexpected meeting and its ensuing shocks had not ended as he had hoped it would. He did not know how he was going to keep the secret of Ginny's return to the land of the living from the Weasleys…especially Ron. But he had promised her, and all he could hope was that he would eventually be able to convince her to reunite with her family. If nothing else, Bonnie deserved to know her family; she deserved to have a share of her grandparents' love. Not to mention her uncles' love and the companionship of her cousins.

"Harry."

Harry started. He looked up to see Ron standing on the second bottom stair.

"Why the hell are you standing there, propping up the door?"

Harry pushed himself away and advanced along the hallway, the bright blue and scarlet Persian carpet runner muffling his footsteps. There was not a single free-standing item in the narrow hallway to trip any unwary visitors, the walls were painted a delicate eggshell blue and not one single painting on the wall was animated; they were all Muggle-painted, country scenes, bucolic and restful in their repetitive verdancy. No one could blame Harry for his taste in artwork. The horrors that used to line the hallway and the staircase had long been relegated to the heart of a magically enhanced fire. They had been burned to ashes, Mrs Black's screams of outrage lasting until the last lick of paint had melted from her twisted and hateful features.

"Just tired," was Harry's response to Ron's enquiry. He tramped past Ron, who followed his best friend up the stairs.

"I thought you were going to be back for dinner. Did you eat with Dudley, then?"

"Err, yeah. Actually, I did." Harry kept his face averted from Ron; he couldn't look him in the eye because Ron could read him as well as Harry could read Ron. "Amanda asked Dudley to invite me to dinner. I didn't think I could refuse."

"Fun night, was it?" asked Ron, as he poured a small measure of Harry's favourite bedtime tipple—oak-matured mead—into a glass and handed it to his mate who had sunk into his favourite chair. "Does Dudley's future wife know about your deep, dark secret yet?"

"No, Ron, she doesn't," said Harry exasperatedly. "And there's really no reason for her to know yet. There's no guarantee that Dudley and Amanda will marry, so she isn't family yet."

"Family!" Ron snorted derisively into his own glass of fire-whisky.

"Yes, Ron, family. The only member of my family who treats me like family."

"Rather late coming to the realisation that he has a cousin…"

"I don't want to hear it, okay! We'll agree to disagree on the subject of Dudley Dursley."

"You're too bloody forgiving, Harry. You always have been," said Ron, seemingly unable to curb his runaway tongue. At the look Harry threw at him though, Ron's ears turned red and he looked away. The look reminded Ron that Harry had forgiven him more than one transgression.

"Is Hermione staying with her mum and dad tonight?" Ron gratefully allowed the change of subject and he and Harry conversed desultorily for fifteen minutes and then Harry took himself off to bed, where he lay awake for a long time, wondering how he was going to get through lunch at the Burrow tomorrow with his new knowledge of Ginny and her daughter colouring all of his interactions with the family he cared for as if they were his own.

He finally fell asleep vowing to reunite Ginny with her family if it was the last thing he did. He would haunt her until she had to give in. He would make her wish that she had never turned her back on the Wizarding World. It could not have been easy for her to give up magic; he knew she had been quite a powerful young witch. But when she ran away, she had had to turn her back on magic as well as her family because the magical community in Britain was too small for someone to be able to hide their self away successfully.

Yes, Ginny Weasley needed her family and she needed to return to her heritage. And Harry couldn't explain to himself why it was so very important that she become part of his life again.

His dreams that night were a giddying montage of flashes of Ginny Weasley from the first time he had seen her on platform nine and three-quarters as she had run along beside the train, through his memories of the little girl at the Burrow and her first year at Hogwarts… her immobile, pale body lying on the damp floor of the Chamber of Secrets, and her unappeasable distress when she thought she would be expelled. The memories sped past in rapid sequence, showing Ginny growing up, her features maturing into a soft beauty, her titian hair becoming longer and her body ripening. He saw her happy, sad, pensive, quiet, mischievous and distressed. These memories of the younger Ginny became overlain with the image of the too-thin, wan young woman he had found that day, her soft beauty still discernible behind the world-weary features; her anger, mistrust and distress morphing into the loving expression that had spread over her face when she had looked at her child.

In a short period of wakefulness, all of these incarnations of Ginny were still fresh in Harry's mind, and he vowed, as he fell asleep again, that he would turn the sad young mother back into the happy and carefree girl he had once known and only now realised how much he had missed.

TBC...