Finding Ginny Ch 6

Ginny's heart skipped several beats; Harry Potter was kissing her—at last! He was kissing her passionately on the lips, instead of peppering her hair with comforting little pecks. Oh, they had been nice too, but this, this is what she had dreamed of from around the age of fourteen; before then, she had been too young to think of the physical aspects of her obsession with Harry Potter. All she had known in those early years was that Harry was just as wonderful in real life as she had always imagined him to be when her father had told her stories about the Boy Who Lived.

Harry had been her hero since before she had even met him, and after he had stayed at the Burrow the summer before she had started at Hogwarts, he had become her obsession. She could not remember when she had first realised that she was in love—real love, not fantasy love—with her brother's best friend. It seemed as if that had always been the case.

Ginny melted against Harry as he turned more fully towards her, but the warm, sweet-smelling child who lay across both of them made it impossible for him to take Ginny fully into his arms. Instead, Harry tightened the arm that was across her shoulders and Ginny turned more fully into the kiss; a difficult and not very successful manoeuvre with the encumbrance that was her child preventing her melting fully into Harry's embrace.

Harry tasted just as she always dreamed he would. His touch was gentle almost tentative. It seemed as if Harry was not going to totally give himself over until he made sure that she was as far into the moment as he was. Ginny pressed her lips more firmly against his, letting him know she was a willing participant.

He opened his lips, covering hers with their firm, supple comfort. Harry still held back; he kissed her with gentle persuasion. It was enough...and yet...not. Ginny wanted more. A tiny little moan escaped her throat—hardly audible, more felt than heard—but it was a signal for Harry to increase his hold on her senses.

Ginny's breath hitched when his tongue laved her lips. She became still, and her breathing became suspended when he breached the tiny opening her parted lips had unconsciously formed. But Harry did not press further, perhaps sensing she was still uneasy; he retracted his tongue, going for caution, forgoing taste and just enjoying sensation. It was enough...her lips against his was enough for now.

In his twenty and a half years, Harry had not kissed many girls. He had been a relatively late arrival on the doorstep of sexual experimentation; his first lip-lock had not engendered a very great desire to repeat the experience. Cho Chang had been a stunning looking girl and Harry had fantasised about her her since his third year at Hogwarts. But actually kissing her had been something of a letdown.

After Cho, he had been afraid that kissing might always be the rather soggy experience that first kiss had been, so he had approached the physical aspect of his next affaire de coeur with some trepidation.

He needn't have worried, because though he had never had a liaison that had lasted more than six months at most, Harry had enjoyed every aspect of each of them. The two witches and one Muggle he had enjoyed relationships with had all been as totally into the moment as he had been into each of them.

Cho had not been able to forget her former boyfriend, Cedric Diggory; at least, not while she had been with Harry. Tears had been the most notable aspect of their very short relationship.

Ginny's lips should not have been so very different to those of the three young women Harry had had successful relationships with, but they were. He could not have described the differences, but if forced, he would have said perhaps it was not Ginny's actual lips, but his emotional reaction to the kiss that made all the difference.

Harry could feel shyness and fear, wonder and insecurity and just the faintest trace of trepidation radiating off Ginny in waves. There was so much more going on beneath the pretty visage that had been ravaged by loss, deprivation and loneliness, and Harry felt the most overpowering urge to protect her and make everything better.

He raised his arm from where it was draped over Ginny's shoulders and cupped the back of her head, gently spearing his fingers through her long tresses and forcing her lips harder against his own. He tried to position himself so that their bodies were closer, but Bonnie made it impossible; the little girls lower body was draped across his pelvis and upper legs, while her torso was pressed against Ginny's chest, her little arms wrapped tightly around her mother's neck. With her head turned to the side, and with Harry's lips on hers and his possessive hold on her head, Ginny was in imminent danger of suffocation.

At the same time as she reluctantly dragged her mouth sideways to break the kiss and rest her forehead against Harry's neck, Bonnie let out a sleepy little squeak and burrowed more deeply against Ginny's chest; she twisted her lower body in an effort to fully climb into her mother's arms, wedging one little knee into Harry's groin as she did so.

Harry grunted in pain, initially screwing his eyes tightly shut and moving the offending knee from his abused anatomy. There was pain, oh yeah, but there was also acute disappointment that the kiss was over. He gently moved the still-sleeping child so that she was fully draped over her mother and then he gathered his protesting muscles—and other abused bits—into action and levered himself to his feet. He rubbed a numb buttock and stared down at Ginny, who, after bestowing a wide-eyed look of...what...pleasure? regret? on Harry, buried her hot face in Bonnie's tousled hair.

"Not the most ideal place to finally kiss you," Harry said. "Here, let me take her." He bent down to remove the child from her mother's tight embrace.

"No, it's okay," said Ginny, a little too quickly, and she tightened her arms around Bonnie, drawing her legs to the side preparatory to standing. But her extended time sitting on the hard floor, combined with the added weight of her child, standing unaided was out of the realms of possibility at that particular moment and she had to quickly put a hand on the floor to stop herself from falling over sideways.

Harry's mouth tightened in irritation. He could see that Ginny was already drawing away from him again and he was suddenly beyond frustrated. "Don't be so bloody ridiculous!" he bit out. Ignoring her mutinous expression, he reached down again and carefully lifted the floppy child into his arms. Ginny wasted no time in scrambling to her feet, though her movements were far from balletic. She was even more numb than Harry had been and as a result, she staggered backwards so that her legs came up against the edge of the bed and she fell unceremoniously onto it.

Harry couldn't help himself...he huffed out a mocking breath. "Clearly, it was okay!"

Ginny scowled and ignoring the painful resurgence of blood flowing into her lower extremities, she forced herself to her feet again, biting her lip at the excruciating pain. For several seconds she walked around in little circles, avoiding Harry's eyes the whole time. Eventually, she was ready and still not making eye contact, she gently extricated Bonnie from his arms. She turned away immediately and with her unwieldy bundle making the task difficult, she began to turn down the bed.

"Would you like some assistance?" Harry's voice was mocking. And just as he knew she would, Ginny replied, "No, thank you."

Taking a deep breath and managing with difficulty to keep the bitter disappointment out of his voice, Harry said, "I'll wait in the other room."

When Ginny, looking defiant, finally joined him, she found Harry wearing a track in the carpet. He stopped the moment she appeared and stared at her intently. Ginny kept her eyes averted, but Harry could easily see that their interlude in the bedroom might never have happened as far as she was concerned. He shook his head.

"What happened, Gin? You've closed yourself off again."

Ginny didn't answer; instead, she crossed the small space to the kitchen, only looking at Harry when she was safely ensconced, the kitchen bench giving an illusion of safety. "I think it's time you left, Harry. It's late."

Harry's frown became thunderous and he took a step towards the bench. Ginny stepped back to lean against the cabinets on the other side of the small galley kitchen. She wrapped her arms around herself; another barrier erected. This further attempt to isolate herself did nothing for Harry's frustration and temper. "So, you're just going to forget what happened in the bedroom?"

Ginny took a deep breath and finally raised her eyes to meet his angry gaze. "What happened in the bedroom, Harry? I was upset; you comforted me. End of story."

Harry couldn't believe it; he just stared at her, totally gobsmacked. As he stared, her face became set and determined and she raised her chin defiantly. She was, apparently, not going to let an aberrant occurrence influence her in any way; she was determined to remain aloof and—apart from her daughter—alone. He shook his head, and without realising he had moved, he was in the kitchen.

He watched in frustration as Ginny increased the space between them again, backing up against the sink, her whole stance wary and rigid. If he had been calm, Harry would have seen the nascent fear in her eyes. But he wasn't calm.

"So I was only comforting you, was I? There was nothing else there?" He reached a hand out to touch her face, but with a little sob, Ginny slapped it away. Before he had a chance to touch her again, if indeed he planned to, Ginny stepped forward, and with a surprising degree of force, she pushed against his chest so that he actually staggered back a couple of steps.

"I want you to leave. Now!" Ginny choked back a sob, but she didn't break down; instead, that little chin rose into the air again as she added, "And I don't want you to come back."

Harry swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. He ran a frustrated hand through his already messy hair. "Ginny—" he began imploringly, but she wouldn't let him get any further.

"Leave! Now!"

There was nothing for it. He glared at her icily and with his face set, Harry strode to the coat stand, and with jerky movements, he shrugged into his coat. "You win," he said, as he adjusted the collar and dragged the scarf from the pocket. "You've finally drilled into my thick head that your determination far and away overshadows mine."

He left without another word, shutting the door quietly behind him. There was no clatter of footsteps on the wooden stairs, instead she heard the soft pop as he Disapparated from the top of the stairs.

Ginny stood completely still for a full minute, the silence crashing around her ears. Then with a shuddering breath, she wrapped her arms tightly around her middle and sank to the floor, where she gave way to anguished sobs.

~HPGW~

Christmas and New Year had come and gone. Harry had not spent any extended time with his adopted family. He had been unsure whether he could get through the days with the knowledge that was burning a hole in his gut without blurting out the truth to Molly and Arthur. It had been hard enough being around Ron and Hermione without giving his secret away. All in all, he felt it would be better for all if he made an excuse so that he could miss Christmas at the Burrow. Apart from anything else, he would have been lousy company.

Molly and Arthur had been upset, but they had not fussed overly much, at least Molly had stopped fussing after Arthur gently admonished her to leave 'the boy' alone. Harry had felt immensely guilty because he knew that they considered him to be a son, and it was important to them to have the whole family get together as often as possible, especially for something as significant as Christmas. Since Ginny's disappearance, having the family close as often as possible was Molly's raison d'etre.

Harry's excuse for missing the always wonderful Burrow Christmas had been that Dudley and Amanda were keen to have him around to help celebrate their first Christmas in their flat. Arthur and a reluctant Molly might have decided not to give Harry a hard time, but Ron's reaction was another matter altogether. Hermione had elbowed him in the ribs when he was unable to prevent a snort of disbelief. He knew that Harry socialised with Dudley now—even if he didn't approve—but this was mad. This was Christmas!

Hermione hadn't given him a hard time, but she had scrutinised hid face, much like Dumbledore had often done...as if she could read his mind. Harry knew that Hermione had never studied Legilimency, but knowing Hermione as he did, she could have picked up the discipline just by reading about it in a book!

Harry was just lucky that his best friends had been swamped with their wedding preparations, so that following their initial noises of protest and disappointment, the matter had been dropped with relative ease.

Harry, of course, had no plans to spend Christmas with Dudley and Amanda; they planned to spend the day with Amanda's family, as Vernon and Petunia had finally realised their dream and had bought a small condo in Spain. They spent as much time there as they could. Naturally, they wanted Dudley with them, but as they did not approve of Amanda—no girl would ever be good enough for their Diddikins—Dudley refused to accompany them anymore.

Harry had realised an old dream and had gone to Italy for a ten day break. Tuscany, to be precise. He had kept himself busy sightseeing, hiring a car to tour around the beautiful countryside, his focus the abundant vineyards. Even though the vines were dormant at this time of the year, the cellars were well stocked. Having to concentrate on the narrow roads that wound their way amongst the abundant hills ensured that Harry's mind was not free to dwell upon Ginny and Bonnie too often. But he could not keep himself occupied twenty-four hours a day and Harry found his nights plagued with memories, not just recent memories, but memories of the Ginny he had known before she disappeared.

He missed both Ginny and Bonnie. He could not believe how much he missed them. Ginny's daughter had wormed her way into his heart as thoroughly as Guy and Leon had Bill, and Sam had Charlie.

But Harry knew it was pointless dwelling on thoughts of the pair; Ginny had made her feelings perfectly clear; she had no intention of coming home and she obviously felt nothing but intense irritation for him.

Once home, and ignoring all Ron and Hermione's efforts to find out where he had been hiding, Harry had allowed himself to be caught up in the final preparations for the wedding. As best man, it was his job to make sure Ron remained firmly grounded...a task, Harry discovered, that mostly involved being a sounding-board; Ron needed constant reassurance that he was doing the right thing and that he was good enough for Hermione.

Now, Harry had Grimmauld Place to himself. His two best friends were on their way to the Seychelles, compliments of Harry. After an idle comment from Hermione several months previously, when she dreamily said, as she turned the pages of a glossy magazine, that she would love to visit the beautiful islands one day. Harry had shouted down their howls of protest by telling them it was his wedding gift to them. They had planned a much more moderate trip to Cornwall, where the English winters were a little milder. The young couple, though both working for the Ministry, did not have much money to throw around on holidays,even if it was a honeymoon; a place of their own to live was a major priority, and they would be moving into a tiny flat in Ottery St Catchpole when they returned. They would have preferred living in London, but accommodation was far too expensive in the city. Of course, they could have stayed at Grimmauld Place, but they felt that they needed their own space once they were married, and Hermione was sure that Harry also needed his own space.

Ron and Hermione had finally given in over Harry's generosity when he announced it was a done deal; he had bought the airline tickets and booked their accommodation, and if they didn't take the bookings, he would lose his money as their were no refunds. They had flown out of Heathrow five hours ago, Ron a pale shade of green at the prospect of having to 'be imprisoned' in that Muggle-made, metal monstrosity.

Harry grinned at his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he rinsed his mouth after cleaning his teeth. He remembered how Hermione had warded off a full-blown panic attack by her new husband by slipping him a strong calming draught in one of the celebratory glasses of champagne at the airport. Harry knew Ron would have slipped into a deep sleep withing five minutes of boarding the plane. Ron had definitely not inherited his father's fascination with Muggles and their contraptions.

An hour after climbing into bed, Harry flopped onto his stomach with a huff of irritation. He wished he had had a lot more to drink, or taken some Dreamless Sleep Potion, or even some of Hermione's Calming Draught, because, as had happened every night since he had stopped seeing Ginny and Bonnie, he could not empty his mind of memories of the times he had spent with them. With a groan, he flopped onto his back again, throwing his arm over his eyes.

Not for the first time Harry imagined what might have been if he had not remained ignorant of exactly what was under his nose when he became old enough to notice girls. Why had he never noticed Ginny as a potential girlfriend? She had given him enough clues: the singing Valentine's message delivered by the surly dwarf, the singing get-well card after the Dementor fiasco, when he had ended up in the Hospital Wing...again! He had often intercepted looks from her, from across the Common Room or the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall...looks that had quickly been averted when he caught her gaze.

Ginny had become a friend in her own right, despite Ron, in typical big brother mode, bemoaning the fact of her hanging around. Harry had admired her for her wicked sense of humour, her skills at mimicry, especially when she took off Percy or Ron. He had definitely admired her Quidditch skills, and though she had only been on the Gryffindor team for two years before her disappearance, she had sometimes played with them at the Burrow during their makeshift Quidditch sessions. For Ginny, for a long time, he apparently had been her dream boyfriend, but he had never put two and two together. Talk about thick!

She had always been there. It had been a case of ignoring what was right under his nose.

Hermione had once told him that Ginny had gotten over her crush on him, and when Harry thought back to Ginny's fourth and fifth years, that definitely seemed to have been the case. He remembered the Ravenclaw, Michael Corner had been her boyfriend in her fourth year, when he himself had been drooling over Cho, and his fellow Gryffindor and classmate, Dean Thomas had been her boy of choice for a while in her fifth year. Harry remembered that Ron had been thrilled when it appeared that Ginny and Dean were no longer an item.

By this stage in his sixth year, Harry had steered clear of flirtations and had instead detachedly watched as Ron had taken his hormones out for a test run with the redoubtable, Lavender Brown, before finally clueing into the fact that the right girl had been under his nose the whole time.

. So many things had happened in that fateful year, not least his extra-curricular activities with Dumbledore and Snape taking over the post of Defence against the Dark Arts teacher and ruining even that for him. His own obsession that year had most decidedly not been female. His obsession had grown and grown throughout the year; Ron and Hermione had castigated him, time and time again, but he could not let it go.

Because of this obsession, Ginny hadn't caused a blip on his radar, and he really did wonder now, how he could have been so stupid. It turned out that the suspicions he had harboured about his own obsession had proved to be correct, though Ron and Hermione had both called him all kinds of a fool for ever harbouring the suspicion in the first place.

But there was no time to feel smug or quietly celebrate his acute insight, because the year had culminated in the death of Dumbledore and the disappearance of Ginny. It had been far too late to do anything but mourn her along with the Weasleys. He had already been in the right head space to mourn a close friend as he was still grieving for Dumbledore, who had died only day's before.

He had thought he was mourning Ginny as a brother would mourn a sister, but his dreams had put paid to that theory. For months he had dreamed of Ginny in all her incarnations: the shy little girl who had been so besotted with him, she had stuck her elbow in the butter, the pale and stressed eleven year old who was slowly being taken over by Tom Riddle, the close-to-death Ginny, lying on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets. Studious Ginny, laughing Ginny, determined Ginny and flying Ginny, with her magnificent hair streaming out behind her

It had been her hair that Harry had noticed through the coffee shop window, because despite the fact that she had been so thin and wan, her hair still shone in all its sunset glory. Harry had never seen quite that shade of red on anyone, accept the Weasley family. But somehow, on the boys, the colour was not as alive as it was on Ginny...perhaps it was the length. Harry had studied that hair quite closely in the time he had been in the new Ginny's company—surreptitiously of course—and he did not think he had ever seen quite so many shades of colour on one person's head...some of them seemed almost luminous. It seemed like one hundred different shades made up the stunning titian fall; it hung thick and straight to just below her shoulder blades.

Harry finally fell asleep thinking that, as adorable as Bonnie was, it was a shame that she had not inherited her mother's spectacular hair colour.

~GWHP~

Tap, tap, tap. Harry was so immersed in the article he was reading in the Muggle newspaper, the noise didn't register immediately. His brow furrowed when the tapping became more insistent.

Taptaptaptaptap! What the hell! Harry lowered the paper and twisted around in his chair to face the window; his brows rose when he saw the unfamiliar owl. Even with the small envelope clamped in its beak, Harry could see that it looked decidedly disgruntled; its head was cocked to the side and its visible, beady yellow eye looked slightly malevolent.

As he dropped the piece of toast and jam he had been eating and rose to open the window, Harry wondered who could be writing to him today. It was Sunday. It couldn't be any of the Weasleys because they had all been at the wedding just yesterday and besides, he knew all the owls belonging to the various factions of the clan. Ron and Hermione would have only just arrived at their destination, and even if Hermione had felt the need to write—doubtful, even for Hermione—it would have been on the plane and she would have had to wait until they landed to track down the magical community on the island to find an owl.

The owl managed to let loose another staccato taptaptap before Harry could open the window even though it could see him moving to let it in. The owl hopped onto the inside sill before launching itself into the air and dropping the letter at Harry's feet rather than let him take it. It cuffed him around the head with one outstretched wing as it flew past him to get to the table, where it landed and began drinking from Harry's glass of orange juice. The ill-tempered owl had to be female, Harry thought as he remained by the open window and watched the avian invader as it finished off his juice and stole the remainder of the toast he had been eating. She flew back past him and out the window; Harry called 'you're welcome' after her retreating form as he slammed the window shut against the freezing January air.

Bending down, Harry picked up the envelope and stared at the unfamiliar writing; Harry Potter was written in unremarkable upper-case letters, the envelope was paper rather than parchment, and not particularly good quality paper at that. As Harry stared at the words, his heart sped up a little; they had been written with a biro rather than a quill.

Taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself, Harry roughly tore the envelope open and extracted a single sheet of paper folded in half. The note was very short.

Harry, I know I have no right to contact you after the things I said

the last time we saw each other, but I really need to see you

Please!

Ginny.

Harry stared at this missive, his thoughts chaotic. He had honestly thought he would never see Ginny again. He was not one to give up once he had set his mind to something, but he readily admitted that the diminutive Miss Weasley had defeated him. Give him a Dark Lord and a bunch of Death Eaters, and he was in his element, but present him with a closed off, mistrustful, beautiful redhead determined to stick to her own agenda, he was pants! Apart from that one kiss in which said redhead had participated fully —regardless of her protestations to the contrary—his powers of persuasion had fallen way, way short of the mark.

Why then, after everything that had been said and done, did Ginny want to see him? Just to make sure that he stayed away? Harry shook his head. No. That definitely didn't make sense. If she was worried that he might need a reminder, she would have just given it to him in the letter.

Harry pushed himself away from the table and headed upstairs. As he showered and dressed, his mind flitted here and there, remembering the short days he had known the new Ginny and her daughter, analysing every brittle meeting, and lingering on their one and only kiss. Ginny's abrupt return to isolationism and her determined and nasty attack had been a shock—he had thought they had finally made a breakthrough and that they had both succumbed to a mutual attraction—and his own determination to bring her home had finally shrivelled and died. It took him a long time to catch on, but the message had finally gotten through.

As he gazed off into space while he polished his glasses with a sheet of toilet paper, Harry came to the unwelcome conclusion that something had to be wrong; Ginny had managed to live her life as a Muggle without reference to anyone in the Wizarding World for three and a half years. Yes, something was definitely wrong.

With an increasing sense of urgency, Harry did a final cursory check in the mirror, and unconsciously attempted to flatten his hair as he hurried from the bathroom. He clattered down the stairs, and grabbing his coat and scarf from the hall cupboard, he bundled himself up against the cold before Disapparating with a soft pop.

~HPGW~

The garage was exactly as it had always been, with the pristine blue car sitting proudly in the middle of the ultra-neat space. Harry had appeared on the small landing at the base of the wooden staircase. He peered up the stairs in the dim light, noting the strip of brighter light under the door at the top. Taking a deep breath he slowly ascended, wondering as he did, what he could expect when he was face to face with the prickly young woman. Even though she had summoned him, Harry was convinced that he would not see a great change in Ginny's attitude. She had been alone and independent for far too long; she did not even seem to be close to Faith, her landlady and part-time babysitter, though Harry felt that was a mutual attitude.

When the door opened before he could knock, Harry paused with one foot in midair. They gazed at each other for a tense moment before Ginny turned back into the room. With a tightening of his lips and a shake of his head, Harry continued his upward journey. When he entered the warm room, Ginny was standing in front of the couch wringing her hands together. Harry stared, reaching out blindly to push the door shut against the bitter cold. The quiet snick of the catch went unnoticed as Harry's gaze fastened on Ginny's mouth when she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue before clamping her teeth over her lower lip. She seemed to realise that she was giving away her nervousness, and she stopped wringing her hands and pulled the sleeves of the hideous, bilious green, overlarge jumper Harry had first seen her in, over her hands.

"Thank you for coming," she said in an almost whisper. Harry gave a short, sharp nod and Ginny watched as he unbuttoned his coat and then thrust his hands into the pockets. He remained silent throughout; this was her party and he couldn't help feeling like a very unwelcome guest who was only invited because he had something his hostess needed.

Ginny apparently read these thoughts in Harry's closed off face and colour flooded her face. Harry looked down at his shoes, because unlike Ron, when Ginny blushed, instead of looking like a boiled lobster, she became even more attractive. He wanted to stay aloof; he needed to remain as distant as possible because she was far too tempting, and because he knew if he made any sort of overture, she would most likely shoot him down in flames. He was absolutely positive she had not invited him to enlarge upon the experience of their single, solitary kiss.

Ginny looked down, unable to look Harry in the face when she next spoke. "I want to apologise for the things I said the last time you were here." When Harry kept his eyes on the worn carpet and remained silent, she blundered on. "I shouldn't have spoken to you like that, I know. But Harry, I was scared."

Harry looked up and raised his eyebrows. "You're saying you were scared of me?"

Ginny shook her head. "No, not scared of you. Scared of what you might have talked me into."

Harry's lips thinned. He needed to move; a couple of steps bought him up short at the kitchen bench where he leaned against it, his legs crossed at the ankles and his hands still buried deeply in his pockets. He hoped he looked more casual than he felt; inside his gut was a roiling, churning cauldron. "Well," he drawled, "you don't have to be scared anymore. I'm only here because you asked me to come. I'm not here to make you do anything." He watched as Ginny swallowed what appeared to be a massive constriction in her throat; there was also a telltale shine in her eyes.

"Where's Bonnie?" he asked, changing the subject and giving her time to collect herself.

"I asked Faith to mind her for me while I talked to you."

"How did you know when I would come?" asked Harry, puzzled. "And where did you get the owl?"

"Delilah belongs to Faith." Harry's brow creased in puzzlement and Ginny rushed to explain.

"Faith is a Squib. She keeps an owl so she can contact her family if she has to. And I was sure you would come when you got my message. I sent Delilah last night, so I knew she would get to you this morning and that you would come straight away."

"I'm that predictable?" asked Harry coldly, filing away the information about Ginny's Squib landlady.

"Pretty much," she whispered. "I knew you wouldn't ignore a call for help."

"What do you want, Ginny?" Harry was more than a little nettled that she felt he was so predictable and that she had hidden Bonnie while she asked what she wanted of him. It was obvious she didn't want Bonnie to see him. But these bitter thoughts were cut off when Ginny's eyes suddenly filled with tears and she collapsed onto the couch, her hands over her face. Harry instinctively made to go to her, but he managed to stop himself. With difficulty, he stayed where he was and waited until she had calmed down. He felt super callous, but he wasn't going to open himself up to more insults and rejection.

Finally, after several long minutes, Ginny managed to bring her emotions under control. She sniffled and dug her fingertips into her closed eyes before swiping the tears away and drying her face with her sleeve. "I'm sorry, Harry. I'm making a total bollocks of this." She started to sniffle again.

Harry knew that if he wanted to hear what Ginny had to say anytime soon, he had to do something to restore her equilibrium. He stood up straight and rounded the bench to enter the tiny kitchen. Having something to do also made him feel a bit more in control; he didn't like to see Ginny so upset, no matter how unpleasant she had been in the past. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't forget the Ginny of the past, nor could he forget that kiss.

Harry hefted the kettle to check there was enough water before pulling his wand from his pocket and pointing it at the kettle so that it boiled instantly.

Ginny watched, sniffling occasionally as Harry made a cup of tea.

"You're not having one?" she asked huskily when he handed the cup to her.

"I'm not thirsty."

Ginny took a sip, noting that it was exactly as she liked it. She pointed towards Harry's pocket where his wand had disappeared again. "You used your wand."

Harry's eyes narrowed in anger. "Bonnie isn't here to see," he bit out angrily. "You made sure of that. And as you're really a witch and I'm a wizard, I'm not going to apologise for using my wand."

Ginny reddened spectacularly, and she shook her head violently, slopping some of the hot tea over her hand. Shaking, she lowered the cup onto the table, but before she could jump up and rush into the kitchen to run cold water onto her abused hand, Harry had taken it in his grasp; his hand was strangely cool and as he continued to hold hers, the sting of the burn faded and disappeared. He knew when the pain had disappeared because he immediately released her hand and stepped away from her.

Ginny swallowed another constriction as she watched him move back to take up his position at the bench. She picked up her cup and took another sip of her tea. "You misunderstood me, Harry. I wasn't going off at you for using your wand; I was only commenting on the fact that every other time I've seen you do magic, you've done it wandlessly.

Harry stared at her for a moment; his instinct was to apologise for jumping down her throat; instead he shrugged. "It's more sensible to use my wand to boil water. If I touch the kettle as it heats up, I burn my hand." This wasn't strictly true; he would not have had to touch the kettle to boil the water, just holding his hand towards it would have been enough. Sometimes though, he automatically used his wand when there was no need to hide who or what he was.

Ginny ducked her head, feeling utterly stupid. She took another sip of her tea. "When did you learn to do wandless magic?"

Harry tutted in exasperation. "Ginny, you didn't ask me here to talk about wandless magic. What is it you really want?"

Ginny bit her lip; she set her cup down—this time more carefully—carefully and clasped her hands together in an attempt to stop them shaking. She kept her gaze on her hands, but Harry could tell that she was close to tears again. He sighed and lowered his own head, digging his finger and thumb into his eyes and pushing his glasses askew. The urge to go over there and pull her into his arms was almost overwhelming.

"I can't do this anymore." The words emerged fractured and Harry jerked his head up to see Ginny's shoulders shaking with the strength of her sobs. That was it! Harry could keep his distance no longer. He strode to the couch and threw himself down beside her, pulling her into his arms.

"Shh," he soothed, rocking her a little and stroking her hair. "Gin, tell me what's wrong." Harry had acted instinctively taking her in his arms, but he had half thought that she might immediately pull away, regardless of her distress. So, when Ginny fisted her hands in the lapels of his coat and burrowed into his chest, his breath lodged in his throat.

It took a good ten minutes for Ginny to settle down enough to talk to Harry. During that time, he continued to hold and soothe her and she seemed content enough to stay in his arms. When the tears had stopped and she seemed relatively calm, Harry slowly straightened away from her, making sure not to totally abandon her. Ginny took a great shuddering breath and leaned her head on the back of the couch. She pushed her mussed hair away from her face and Harry waited for her to speak.

"It's all gone wrong, Harry," she eventually said in a dead voice. Harry reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.

"What's gone wrong?"

"Faith is moving to Australia and selling the house," she whispered. "I don't have enough money to rent anywhere else, but even if money wasn't an issue, the list for Housing in the Muggle world is ten miles long, so there's no hope of me getting even a garden shed.

"I can't leave Bonnie with anyone other than Faith because of her accidental magic, so I'm going to lose my job in Simon's coffee shop. And I can hardly leave the house with her because she's releasing magic all the time; several times a day since the last time she saw you. She looked up at Harry, her eyes brimming again. Her voice shook when she continued.

"She had a screaming fit in Tescoes a few days ago. She saw a man who looked a bit like you from the back..." Ginny swiped a sleeve across her nose. "She called your name, and when the man turned and she saw it wasn't you, she went into meltdown. The glass doors of the milk fridges shattered!"

She surged to her feet and began pacing frenziedly. "If they weren't made of toughened glass, some people could have been cut to ribbons," she wailed, grabbing twin handfuls of her hair and pulling. Harry jumped up, ready to intervene if she tried to hurt herself further. But Ginny released her hair and wrapped her arms around her middle, seemingly emotionally exhausted, as she just stood there, gazing off into space. Harry could see the purple shadows of exhaustion under her eyes, and he put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

"I can't imagine how stressful that must have been," he whispered.

"All I could do was scoop her into my arms, abandon my shopping and race out of there like a bloody criminal. I can't believe the ministry haven't descended." Secretly, Harry agreed. That was a pretty serious bout of wild, underage magic, and as it occurred in the middle of a Muggle shopping precinct, it was very odd the Ministry hadn't arrived to put things to rights. The only thing he could think of to account for the lapse was that there could be a magical family or families with young children in the area, and so they expected some bouts of underage magic. Still, shattered glass doors was quite a major burst of wild magic.

Harry was starting to feel overheated, so he released Ginny and removed his coat, throwing it carelessly over the back of the couch. He threw himself into a corner of the couch and told Ginny to come and sit down. When she was settled with her back in the corner of the other arm and one knew bent so she was facing Harry, he said, "You couldn't have thought it would be easy bringing up a magical child in the Muggle World, Ginny."

Ginny let out a loud sigh. "I tried not to think about it. And before you appeared in our lives, the accidental magic had been virtually non-existent. Oh, there were tiny little things, like summoning a toy or changing the colour of one of her doll's dresses. The most impressive thing she ever did was locking the door when I tried to take her down to Faith one time, and slamming the bedroom door shut when she didn't want you to leave that la...last night you were here."

Harry shook his head; he noted Ginny was looking almost sick. She was pale and shaking slightly and there was a sheen of perspiration covering her face. Her hands were buried inside the overlong sleeves of the hated jumper again, and she was wringing the fabric so hard, Harry was sure the creases would never come out. He needed a distraction; he leaned forward and reached for his coat, fiddling in the pocket and eventually producing his wand. He pointed it at the half full cup sitting in a puddle of spilled tea on the scared coffee table. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ginny watching him greedily as he delicately moved his wand, first to clean up the spill, and then too refill the cup and finally, placing the tip of the wand inside the cup, he warmed the tea. As an encore, he replicated the cup and filled it with tea the same colour as the liquid in Ginny's cup. Ginny's nervous movements had stopped while Harry put on his magical show He could easily see that though she had ostensibly given up magic, she had avidly watched as he had wielded his wand.

Her powers wouldn't just fizzle out and die because she had decided to live without magic. Harry wondered just how many episodes of wild magic Ginny had put up with over the time she had isolated herself in the Muggle world. Trying to suppress one's powers was like trying to put a stopper inside the crater of an active volcano. Nothing would stop the inevitable eruption.

Harry placed his wand on the table and Ginny stared at the lovely carved and tapered length of wood; she remembered that Harry's wand was made of holly, and that it had a phoenix feather core. She knew phoenixes were very, very rare, and if you could find one, it wouldn't easily give up any tail feathers. Fawkes the phoenix had been very generous once upon a time and given up two of them.

She was distracted from her thoughts when Harry nudged her hand where it was clenched inside its ratty sleeve; he held her tea out to her and she quickly dragged the sleeve back. The warmth of the cup was comforting and the hot liquid within calmed her roiling emotions; she closed her eyes and savoured the brew. When she finally opened her eyes, it was to see Harry watching her over the rim of his own cup.

"Has it been easy to subdue your own magic?" Harry asked in a gentle voice. Ginny stiffened a little, and she stared into her cup for several tense seconds. Finally, she drank the remainder of her tea and leaned forward to place the cup back on the table.

"I've had episodes of accidental magic, but I've always been able to make sure I'm away from curious eyes, and I haven't done anything monumental. Certainly nothing like the things you once told me happened to you before you knew you were a wizard.

Harry's eyes were probing, and Ginny suddenly felt she was too much in the spotlight. She uncurled herself and moved quickly into the kitchen where she grasped the edge of the sink and stared through the small window. Harry knew a change of subject was in order.

"So, what do you plan to do? How can I help?"

Ginny continued to stare out the window, but Harry was sure she wasn't seeing anything. It was a few seconds before she spoke and Harry had to strain to hear her from where he still sat on the couch. "I'm tired, Harry," she whispered. "It's a constant battle; there's never enough money and now my three year old daughter is running amok." With a sigh that was audible, Ginny grasped the edge of the sink even more tightly and hunched her shoulders up around her ears. Harry joined her in the kitchen; he put his hands on her thin shoulders and began to knead them gently.

Ginny didn't flinch at his touch, nor the nearness of his body, and when he turned her to face him, she looked into his kind face and said, "I want to come back."

TBC...