Chapter 7

Harry just stared at her, not quite willing to believe his ears. He watched as Ginny picked up a tea-towel and convulsively began to run her fingers along the side seams. When he remained silent, Ginny rushed back into speech. "I know I've got a cheek and I know I have no right to ask you after holding you at arm's length all those times you came to see me. And I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing, but Harry..." Her voice had become a whisper; she paused and looked up at him with haunted eyes, looking scared and vulnerable, "...I'm so scared."

Ginny sniffed and swiped her sleeve across her face because a certain amount of dampness still lingered, though she seemed to have pulled herself together enough not to actively cry anymore. Harry did not know what to say or do. The silence stretched out and Ginny pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table. She laid the tea-towel on the table and began flattening out the crinkles with her hand. She could feel Harry's eyes drilling into the top of her head.

Finally, she could stand the silence no more. "Say something," she whispered. Harry stood up and hunching his shoulders, he thrust his hands into his jeans pockets.

"If everything hadn't suddenly gone arse about for you, would you still want to come back?" Harry's voice was expressionless and Ginny's brow furrowed.

"I... I..."

"That's what I thought," said Harry coldly.

Ginny sprang up and moved towards him. Her face was red and her eyes bright. "You've been at me and at me to come back, and now that I've said I want to..."

"But you don't want to!" interrupted Harry.

"I do want to!" Ginny stamped her foot and stood in front of him quivering with anger. "I never wanted to leave! I had to leave, Harry. She flung her arm out, encompassing the room—the flat—with the agitated gesture.

"Do you think this is what I wanted? Do you really think I wanted to leave everything and everyone that I knew and loved to isolate myself in a world where I don't belong?"

Harry rocked back on his heels and then pierced her with a hard look. "You fought tooth and nail to stay here when I found you. Nothing I said would sway your desire to remain here."

Ginny shook her head and Harry saw her chin quiver a little, though she managed to stave off another attack of tears. "That's because nothing has changed, Harry," she whispered. "I still have a child and as far as I can imagine, my mother's attitude towards her single-mother daughter would be exactly the same as it would have been if I had told her I was pregnant way back at the end of my fifth year instead of leaving.

Harry shook his head. "I refuse to believe that the woman I have known all these years would ever discard one of her children, no matter the reason." They glared at each other until finally Ginny looked away.

"We'll agree to disagree on that point, Harry. But you must allow that I have known and lived with Molly Weasley longer than you have and, I am speaking from the position of a daughter... an only daughter." She looked back at him and raised her chin. "That is a perspective that neither you, nor any of my brothers can appreciate."

Harry could not really argue with that. True, he knew that Molly was strict with all of her children and perhaps he might have been aware that Ginny did not have anywhere near the same amount of free time in the holidays he had spent at the Burrow as he, Ron and the twins had done before they left home; she was more often than not likely to be helping her mother around the house. But he had never, never been aware of Molly being overly harsh or in any way unloving with her only daughter.

Harry speared his fingers through his hair in a gesture that Ginny remembered all too well. He had always done it when he was feeling unusually agitated or his argument was resting on very shaky ground. "So, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here, Ginny. You want to come back to the Wizarding World, and yet you obviously still feel you won't be welcome back into your family... at least as far as your mother is concerned. Where are you going to go?"

Ginny seemed to deflate and she sank down onto the couch. She covered her face with her hands and rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. "Oh, God! This is so much harder than I thought it would be."

She shook her head in short, sharp little movements of denial. "I can't do it... I can't do it," she said in a muffled voice which Harry had to strain to hear.

Harry stared at her bent head and he suddenly understood exactly what it was Ginny was finding so difficult to say. A funny little explosion went off inside his stomach as it all became clear. She had to leave the Muggle world because she couldn't cope anymore... neither financially nor with Bonnie's burgeoning magic. It was only sensible that she return to the world she had been born into, even if she was not yet ready to return to her family. And even in the magical world, Ginny still needed a home and the wherewithal to support herself and her daughter. And she had neither.

Harry, of course, had both... the second in spades. And if he was totally honest with himself, he had absolutely no qualms about supporting Ginny and Bonnie. The Weasleys had given Harry so much since he had come to know them all those years ago; this was a way he could pay them back a little, even if they didn't know what he was doing. And there was plenty of room at Grimmauld Place, and Ron and Hermione were now married and would not be coming back there to live.

Harry rubbed the back of his neck as he stared at Ginny's bent head. Ginny knew a fair bit about him because, unlike herself, he hadn't held back when talking about himself, mainly because she already knew the bare bones of his life. She knew that he had inherited Sirius' house and fortune and she knew that the Potters had not exactly been destitute either. She must know that he was in a position to take her in.

Perversely though, he found her presumption more than a little irritating after the way she had held him at arm's length all the time he had tried to get past her reserve. No wonder she was not game enough to voice her request.

"I gather you need my help in more ways than just getting you back through the invisible barrier that separates the Muggle World from the Wizarding World," he said.

Ginny's head jerked up and she stared at Harry, blood rushing into her face when she realised what he had said. She jumped up, and spun away from him. She raised an agitated hand to the back of her head, gathering the currently unkempt length of red hair together in her hand where her fingers tightened and pulled so hard, Harry knew it had to hurt.

Harry shut his eyes and sighed, guilt churning in his stomach. What the hell was the matter with him? Just as she had said a minute ago, he had been at her and at her to come back to the Wizarding World with him, and now she had decided to do just that, he was trying to shoot her down in flames! He walked up behind Ginny and put his hand gently over the whitened knuckles of the hand that had hold of her hair. Ginny jumped with fright and jerked away from his touch, spinning around to face him and backing away. Harry's hand fell to his side.

"Ginny... I live at Grimmauld Place. Ron lived with me, and Hermione was there more often than not, but they got married yesterday and are on their honeymoon in the Seychelles. When they come home they'll be moving into a flat in Ottery St Catchpole.

"I have that huge house to myself. There's plenty of room for you and Bonnie. You could stay there until you're ready to face your family. No one need know."

Ginny's eyes had filled with tears again but she dashed them away impatiently. "I thought you hated Grimmauld Place," she whispered in a damp little voice. It was a trite observation, she knew, but it was all she could manage, even though the urge to throw herself into his arms and smother him with gratitude was uppermost in her mind.

Harry shrugged. "I loathed it the way it was when the Order was using it." He rubbed the back of his neck and looked a little uncomfortable. "And of course, after... well, after Sirius, I didn't want anything to do with the place. But we—me, Ron and Hermione—had to use it as a bolthole when we first went on the run after Bill and Fleur's wedding..."

Ginny looked confused but Harry waved a slightly impatient hand. He didn't want to go off on a tangent at the moment. He hadn't told Ginny about any of the horror months searching for Horcruxes and Hallows and trying to remain free; she had definitely not wanted to hear anything about what had happened while she had been isolated from the Wizarding World. But neither was now the time.

"I'll tell you about what happened after you left another time. Suffice it to say, you'll find it hard to believe that Grimmauld Place isn't the same manky, mouldy old house that we stayed in all those years ago. Turns out Kreacher quite liked having me as a master after all, and it's amazing what a co-operative House-elf can do."

A fleeting look of sadness crossed Harry's face. "He decontaminated the whole place, followed my wishes to the letter. He was just glad to be able to live in the Black house again after his time at Hogwarts. For that privilege, he was resigned to having the walls painted in light, bright colours and the Slytherin fittings removed.

Ginny had returned to the sofa and was listening to Harry's words with avid interest. Harry followed suit and he pulled a dining room chair across the floor, being careful not to crowd her. " So," said Ginny, once Harry was settled. "Kreacher didn't get too upset when you burned Mrs Black's portrait? And how did you get it off the wall anyway?" Her brow furrowed. "Wasn't it stuck on with a Permanent Sticking Charm?".

"Ah," said Harry, an evil glint in his eye that made Ginny catch her bottom lip between her teeth in an effort to stop herself grinning at his obvious relish. "Mrs Black wasn't consigned to her fiery end right away. That stunning work of art might have been stuck to the wall with a Permanent Sticking Charm, but it wasn't Mrs Black who cast it. It appears that the chatelaine of Grimmauld Place would never get her claws dirty by doing such menial work as hanging portraits or tapestries of family trees. Kreacher's family had served the Blacks for hundreds of years and anything that any of them had enchanted with Permanent Sticking Charms could be reversed by any current living member of the family... to wit, Kreacher."

"And he removed them willingly?" asked Ginny, amazed. "Even his ancestor's heads that lined the stairs."

"He did," said Harry. "I told you that he and I finally learned to get along. Plus, I allowed him to keep Walburga's portrait in his quarters, just as long as he didn't put it up with a Permanent Sticking Charm. I also let him keep the family tree."

"So when did you burn it?"

Harry's eyes clouded again and he didn't answer immediately. When he finally spoke, his voice no longer held the mischievous note that was present when he spoke of Mrs Black's portrait's fate. "Kreacher died around a year ago and once I'd dealt with all the hoopla that accompanies a House Elf's demise and burial—as per instructions from the Hogwarts' House Elfs—I wasted no time in consigning that hideous portrait to a magically enhanced fire."

"I'm glad you and Kreacher finally learned to get along. He was really creepy, but I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. It sounds as if you and he became quite close."

Harry shrugged. "Well, yeah, I suppose we did. He just needed someone to call family, again. And as I inherited him along with the house, and as Hermione finally convinced me that he would make a better ally than enemy, and that all he needed was a kind master, we finally learned to rub along."

This was obviously a painful subject; Harry sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands dangling down between his legs. His eyes were fixed on his hands, where he was industriously picking at a thumb nail. We worked together to fix up the house to my specifications. "I like to think he had a couple of happy and contented years."

After several seconds, he finally added, "It's probably hard to believe, but I miss him."

Ginny leaned forward and put her hand on Harry's forearm. "I'm really sorry, Harry."

Harry shrugged, doing his best to ignore the fact that Ginny was willingly touching him. "He was really old. He was nearly a hundred and fifty, if you can believe that. Older than Dumbledore... hell, he was even older than Bathilda Bagshot."

Ginny's brow furrowed. "Why do I know that name?"

"She wrote A History of Magic,"

After a couple of seconds thought, Ginny remembered and she nodded her head.

"Yeah. She lived in Godric's Hollow where my Mum and Dad lived and where I was born. She was killed by Voldemort and then he made his pet snake, Nagini inhabit her body to lay a trap for me and Hermione when we went looking for the Horcruxes.

Ginny looked a little overwhelmed by all of this information. Harry waved an airy hand. "It's a long story, best left for an evening when we can sit in front of a roaring fire with a glass of wine."

"I've no idea what a Horcrux is, but..." Ginny jumped up and rushed into the bedroom. Harry heard her rummaging around and when she reappeared, she held a copy of 'A History of Magic' aloft. Harry's eyes widened; he stared at the thick book and then at Ginny's sheepish face.

So, she hadn't come away with absolutely no reminder of her heart lifted a little. This was the first indication he had seen that Ginny had actually been unable to leave every trace of the magical world behind her. Progress?

Ginny put the book on the scarred coffee table and reseated herself. They both fell silent for a time, each lost in their own thoughts. Harry had made the offer to help her, now it was up to her to accept or not. As far as Harry could tell, she didn't have much choice really. What, with her landlady selling up and Bonnie turning even the simplest outing into a magic show for the Muggles, Ginny's life had become untenable. Hell, Harry knew it had been difficult from the start.

He had just decided to push a little bit when the noise of the garage door banging shut drew their attention. Ginny bounded to her feet. "Oh, crap!" she breathed as she rushed toward the flat door. She had pulled it open before Faith, carrying a bundled-up Bonnie, could rap upon it.

"Virginia, I told you that I had business to take care of this morning and that I could only look after Bonnie for an hour. It's been an hour and fifteen minutes and I have to go!"

"I'm so sorry, Faith. The time got away from me," Ginny's voice was shakily apologetic as she had the Bonnie-bundle thrust into her arms. Faith turned a gimlet eye upon Harry who was still standing near the sofa.

"Hmm," she sniffed. "Handsome young men are not an excuse for ignoring your responsibilities, my girl." Harry stared stonily at the middle-aged woman and she sniffed again and refocused on Ginny who was struggling to unwrap her tightly bound child, who was herself struggling to get out of what looked like a large padded quilt which enveloped every inch of her, including her head.

Harry jumped forward and relieved Ginny of her burden as Faith launched into speech again. "I hope you're putting all of your efforts into finding another place to live, Virginia. As of yesterday afternoon, the house was sold. The settlement date is thirty days hence."

Ginny blanched. "Thirty days?" she whispered weakly. "But..."

Faith had turned smartly and was through the door, leaving Ginny talking to fresh air. Ginny held onto the door weakly watching her nearly ex-landlady descend the stairs. Half way down, the woman turned around to speak again, raising her voice above the excited squeals emanating from the room behind Ginny. "Bonnie's accidental magic is getting out of hand, my girl. I suggest you get yourself back to the Wizarding World where it won't be such a problem."

Ginny covered her face with a hand as she pushed the door shut. She ignored the ecstatic greeting Bonnie was bestowing on Harry. The little girl was hanging around his neck like a limpet and peppering his face with sloppy kisses. Harry was laughing at her antics but he was still entirely aware of what had just taken place between Ginny and her landlady. Ginny crossed the room and sunk dejectedly onto the couch again.

Harry joined her there, Bonnie still clinging to him and grinning into his face. "Has she always been like this?" he asked, gesturing with his head toward the door.

Ginny shrugged. "She's never been the warmest person in the world, but she took me in, no questions asked, even knowing I was pregnant."

"How did you find her? I mean, surely it couldn't have been a coincidence that your landlady was someone who knew that there are witches and wizards in the world."

Ginny squirmed a little and when she spoke, Harry had to strain to hear her over Bonnie's excited babbling. "No, it wasn't a coincidence. Someone from Hogwarts organised the whole thing."

Harry's mouth fell open. "Someone from Hogwarts knew about your problems and aided and abetted you in leaving your family and your world?" He couldn't believe it. Who on earth would have sanctioned such an action by a young girl who was not even of age?" Ginny had bristled during this rebuke, but Harry ignored her obvious displeasure and discomfort. "Was it an adult... a teacher?"

"It doesn't matter who it was," said Ginny coldly. "It's old history. And besides, the person is dead."

Harry stared at Ginny. Bonnie it seemed, was sick of being ignored by her hero. She placed a little hand on either side of Harry's face and tried to turn his face towards her. Harry allowed the diversion and he smiled stiffly at the little girl before planting a kiss on the end of her little button nose.

"Hey Kewpie, I need to talk to Mummy for a minute. Why don't you get down on the mat and do your unicorn puzzle. I want to see if you can put it together all by yourself now."

Bonnie pushed herself back in Harry's arms and looked him in the face. "I can do it by myself now. I'm nearly fwee." She looked at her mother. "When I'm fwee, Mummy?"

Ginny smiled tiredly and held up four fingers. "It'll be your birthday in this many sleeps."

Bonnie concentrated on her own little hand, trying and failing to tuck her thumb into her palm. Harry solemnly assisted her. "Four more sleeps until you're three. Wow! It's not very long until you're a big girl, is it?" Bonnie grinned, informing Harry importantly, "I'm already a big girl."

"Well then, show me how quickly you can do that puzzle."

Bonnie squirmed out of Harry's arms and proceeded to pull one of the boxes containing her toys out from under the coffee table. The puzzle box was right on top, an indication the unicorn puzzle was used often. Both he and Ginny watched as Bonnie carefully took the lid off and set it on the table before taking up the box and walking on her knees to the edge of the rug. She took the first oversized piece out and set it down precisely on the hard floor.

Keeping his eyes fixed resolutely on the child, Harry spoke to Ginny in little more than a whisper."If the person is dead, it can't hurt if you tell me who it was who set all of this up for you, can it?" asked Harry.

Ginny remained silent for more than a minute, watching her daughter's efforts to fit the puzzle pieces together. Did it really matter now if she did tell Harry? This whole set up had finally fallen around her ears like a house of cards and she was now dependent on Harry's good will. She knew he would help her regardless of whether she kept her secrets or not, and she did really want to confide in him. But it was hard to let go of the habits of what seemed a lifetime.

She took a deep breath. "It was the Muggle Studies teacher, Charity Burbage, who helped me." Harry raised his eyebrows and Ginny rushed on. "Faith is her mother. It was after Charity died that Faith decided that she wanted to move away from Britain for good. Her other daughter is a Muggle— or maybe she's a Squib too. I'm not entirely clear on heredity in the case of a Squib marrying a Muggle and they have a magical and a non-magical child. Is the non-magical one a Muggle or a squib. I always assumed that because there is one magical child from the union then the other is a Squib like her mother.

"Anyway, Hope, Faith's other daughter, lives in Australia with her husband and new baby son. They've wanted Faith to move there for years, especially after he came back and everyone was in danger."

Ginny sighed sadly. "Faith has changed since Charity died. I think because I'm a witch, I remind her too much of her magical daughter. She's virtually stopped communicating with her extended magical family. They're quite distant anyway, so she's not going to miss them at all; apparently they're rather embarrassed that there is a Squib in their Pureblood family. Delilah was really only used for communicating with Charity."

Harry was silent again. He really hadn't ever taken much notice of Charity Burbage, having never taken Muggle Studies; he hadn't even known that Muggle Studies had been one of Ginny's subjects... another blot on his 'Ginny-was-never-on-my-radar-at-Hogwarts', history. He knew Charity had been captured and killed by Voldemort not long after the last term of his sixth year; Kingsley had told him.

"Just another example of the bigotry that is rampant in the Wizarding World," was all he could think to say. "The only difference between so many of them and that murdering scum, are the extremes Voldemort was willing to go to to ensure the domination of Purebloods and powerful Halfbloods over the weaker Halfbloods, the Muggle-borns and the Muggles."

Harry watched as Ginny shuddered. His brow creased. "Come on," he scoffed. "Surely you're not one of the people who is frightened to say his name. And even if you were before, he's been dead for two and a half years now."

Ginny just shrugged. "I haven't really thought about him all that much, especially after finding out that he was... that you had killed him. I stopped having nightmares about what happened in my first year a long time ago."

She shrugged again. "More recently, I had other demons to fight for him to take up too much room in my head. But old habits die hard." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "If I did think about him, it was to hope that my family and... and you... and Hermione, were safe from him."

Harry felt the usual mire of negative emotions he always felt when thinking about the casualties of the war with Voldemort, but now was not the time to tell Ginny that people that she knew and cared about, had died. He was relieved when their attention was pulled back to Bonnie who was growling in frustration when a particularly bizarrely-shaped puzzle piece was resisting all her efforts to align smoothly with its neighbour.

Harry was preparing to join her on the floor when Bonnie held her little hand out to hover over the piece. Before both his amazed, and Ginny's resigned and frustrated eyes, the puzzle piece moved independently, changing shape so that it abutted smoothly with its neighbours. Harry turned to Ginny, his eyebrows raised. Ginny shook her head and sighed. "Not a day goes by without some small incidence of magic. If they were all as surreptitious as that, I wouldn't be so freaked out. But she usually saves her more spectacular performances for when we're in public."

"You don't tell her off?" asked Harry in an undertone, his eyes on Bonnie's blonde curls as she leaned over the next piece of puzzle.

Ginny shook her head. "How can I tell her off for something that is instinctual? Mum... Mum never told us off. She just waited until we were old enough to try to explain that we had to try to stop doing magic on a whim. Of course, at this age..." she gestured to her daughter with a weary wave of her hand, "it's totally accidental. To Bonnie, it's just natural. It was when I was older, maybe around six, that I could control it, at least a little bit... unless I was angry or upset. It was only after I turned six that my parents became strict with me about controlling my magic. It's just what magical parents do with their offspring."

Harry remembered his own horrendous childhood; his earliest memories were of punishments—usually corporal—given for his use of magic. He had learned much earlier than six to hide his freakishness; he supposed that the survival instinct had been almost as strong as his instinct to use magic; of course, back then, he really had thought he was a freak. Of course, fear and anger had made him produce even wilder magic, but that was also usually the survival instinct kicking in, especially when Dudley and his gang were on the warpath. Harry knew that if she was his, he could never chastise this very young Bonnie for doing what came naturally to her. He supposed that it was Ginny's acceptance—even in the face of her utter frustration and fear—that made her daughter's bouts of magic so frequent.

"I did it! Look, Harry, I did it!" The cries of delight pulled Harry from his bitter thoughts just in time to catch the little missile that threw herself at him. "See, I am a bigger girl."

Harry hoisted Bonnie into the air over his head, digging his fingers gently into her sides to tickle her. Bonnie squealed and squirmed with delight and Harry grinned into the precious little face before lowering her and kissing her on the nose again. "So you are," he agreed solemnly, wrapping his arms around the slight body and cuddling her to him. He looked at Ginny over the top of her daughter's head.

"She needs to grow up knowing why she does the things she does."

Ginny's lower lip quivered and she caught it between her teeth. She looked at Harry with a mixture of regret and thankfulness. "I know," she whispered.

Harry lowered himself to sit on the sofa, lifting Bonnie so she was straddling his knees, facing him. "Are you hungry?" he asked, bouncing the little girl up and down in a 'horsey ride', and when Bonnie nodded enthusiastically, he said, 'How about I go and get us some fish and chips for lunch?"

~HPGW~

With Bonnie's slight weight straddling one hip, Ginny looked around the forlorn flat one last time. The room wasn't bare; most of the furniture had been here when Ginny first arrived, but all the personal items had been removed and taken to Grimmauld Place. It was a bittersweet moment for Ginny; she had never felt truly at home here because she had always craved something else, but it was the only home that her daughter had ever known.

As the room had emptied out and her boxes of toys had finally disappeared, Bonnie had become quieter and quieter. Now, she was resting with her head on Ginny's shoulder, and a long forgotten habit had reared its head again; Bonnie was sucking her thumb. Only the fact that her daughter knew that they were going to go and live with Harry had prevented tears from falling. Still, it was a huge upheaval for the three year old, and over the last couple of hours, Bonnie's chatter had petered out so that now she had fallen totally silent.

Ginny overcame the urge to race around checking the cupboards one last time; she had already delayed their final departure twice while she did exactly that. Two hours earlier, Harry had sent her heart spiralling into her throat when, after she had been worrying about leaving things behind, he had taken out his wand and held it out to her.

"Do a Summoning Charm," he said. Ginny had looked at the wand as if it was a venomous snake. Harry had taken her hand and curled her fingers around the grip of the holly and phoenix-feather wand. A tiny shower of sparks had streamed from the tip causing Ginny to jump. She would have let go if Harry's hand had still not been wrapped around her own.

When the shock had worn off, Harry had told her to summon her belongings from within the lounge-room and kitchen, the bedroom and the bathroom. He had then told her to do the same for anything of Bonnie's that might have been overlooked. All that had appeared was a tiny felt zebra finger-puppet from under Bonnie's bed.

As Ginny looked around, she marvelled at how clean the place was. Harry had used magic to Scourgify and Tergeo the flat to within an inch of its life. It would have taken her hours to do what Harry did in minutes. The moving of all their belongings had been quickly and simply accomplished by Harry who had shrunken the motley collection of cases, bags and boxes, put them in the capacious pockets of his overcoat, and Disapparated with them to Grimmauld Place. That had been this morning, and now there was only herself and Bonnie to transport to their new home.

Ginny had baulked when Harry had told her he could have them both in London in seconds as he could easily side-along them both. She had insisted that it would be too traumatic for Bonnie. She had felt immensely grateful when Harry had not wasted time arguing; he had told her he would hire a car and they would drive to London. Ginny wasn't surprised to hear that Harry could do something as Muggle worthy as drive.

Ginny kissed the top of Bonnie's head as she pulled the door shut behind her. "Come on Bon-bon. It's time to start our new life." Ginny had already said her farewells to Faith, so now, she followed Harry out to the car without a backward glance

~GWHP~

It had taken five hours to get to the outskirts of London from the city in the north where Ginny had been living for the last three and a half years. They had spent three-quarters of an hour at a roadside inn having a meal and ironing out the kinks caused by inactivity and the close-confines of a car.

Bonnie, excited by the trip, had chattered like a little magpie from her booster seat in the back, but she had fallen asleep within fifteen minutes of the resumption of their journey after the meal. Considering she had never been on a long car journey, the little girl had been remarkably well-behaved.

Harry could not help but notice that the closer they got to London, Ginny, who had happily let her daughter fill the confines of the car with her chatter until she had fallen asleep, had fallen totally silent herself. Harry could feel the tension rolling off her in waves.

"Not long now," he said just loud enough to be heard over the quiet swish of the tyres on the road. Ginny reluctantly dragged her eyes away from the sweep of road illuminated by the headlights; she appeared to be blind to the rest of the traffic and the urban lights and activity. She smiled weakly and returned her gaze to the road.

"So," Harry continued resolutely; he really wanted to put Ginny at her ease. "What was with your landlady calling you 'Virginia'? I know you used to get pretty steamed if anyone ever made that mistake when you were at Hogwarts."

"I changed my name... when I left. I thought it would be harder to find me if Ginny Weasley no longer existed. So, I became Virginia Wesley."

Harry didn't say anything. It struck him anew however, just how desperate Ginny had to have been to leave everything she knew behind and to wipe out her previous existence by changing her identity. Ginevra Weasley, witch, had become Virginia Wesley, Muggle.

The silence had become oppressive; Harry sensed guilt as well as apprehension.

"There's no need to be worried, you know," he said. "I've charmed your rooms so that if anyone from the family visits—and they do on occasion—you will remain undetected. You're on the first floor in the room that you and Hermione stayed in when we were all there with the Order. I've put up Repelling and Imperturbable charms as well as a variation on the Disillusionment Charm. Anyone who passes the door will be unable to hear anything, but they will also not notice the door."

"Why didn't you just put us on the top floor?" asked Ginny. If I remember correctly, that's where Sirius kept Buckbeak, didn't he? Surely no one goes up there very much."

"Yeah, Sirius did keep Buckbeak up there. It was his parent's room. But Ron's had that room since he moved in... and Hermione of course, when she stayed. Besides, I didn't want Bonnie having to contend with that many stairs. I've made changes over the years... the room that is now yours has an ensuite bathroom, and I've turned the big storage cupboard on one side into a separate room for Bonnie that only opens into your room; I removed the door that opens onto the landing."

Ginny was flabbergasted at the trouble Harry had apparently gone to. It had been less than two weeks ago that she had summoned him to beg him to help her; and now, here she was, within minutes of arriving at her new home... Harry's home. He had risen to the occasion magnificently, but then again, he was Harry Potter: the Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One, and whatever other titles may have been bestowed upon him since she had left the Wizarding World.

Five minutes later they pulled up in Grimmauld Place, and fighting down her panic, Ginny looked out at an entirely different facade to the one she remembered from her previous stays here, not that she had seen the front of number twelve all that often. She knew she could only see it because she was magical, and though this small proof of her heritage made her heart leap, it also increased her panic.

Harry looked across at her; he knew that her stress level was off the scale, but only time would calm her down. When she realised that he was not going to throw her to the wolves, she would settle into this new chapter of her life and then he could only hope that time and circumstance would enhance her desire to rejoin her family.

Harry got out of the car and walked around to open Ginny's door. On legs that felt like rubber, she shakily exited the comfortable hire car to stand on the grimy asphalt, her eyes still fixed on the red brickwork studded with gleaming windows, and a royal blue door. Ginny knew that the clean and bright facade had to have been accomplished with magic because it would have looked very strange to the Muggle neighbours and passersby to see people painting the front of a house that wasn't there. The blank, windows looked down on them with bored indifference; the house that had once been the bastion of a very opinionated, Pureblood family was totally unconcerned that two new tenants were taking up residence.

Ginny rubbed her arms in the cold evening air and Harry put a hand on her shoulder. "It's going to be fine, Gin. I know it's a big change for you, but you don't have to worry that the house is still the hostile, gungy environment that it was before. It's a normal house... well, normal for a wizard's house, anyway."

Harry opened the back door of the car and carefully unbuckled the restraint protecting Bonnie. He gently gathered the little girl into his arms. Her brow furrowed and she emitted a sleepy little squeak, but she did not awaken. Without another word, Harry crossed the square, leaving Ginny to follow at her own pace; there was nothing else he could say to put her at her ease, she had to come to terms with things on her own now. As he walked up the four steps to the landing, he clearly heard Ginny's footfalls as she finally followed him.

Harry reached into his pocket and touched his wand before touching the large gleaming doorknob in the middle of the door. Ginny had hurried up the steps behind Harry and she distinctly heard the snick of the door unlocking. Harry pushed the door open and stepped back for Ginny to precede him into the house, but Ginny was looking back at the square where a couple walking their dog walked past, oblivious to the people on the landing of number twelve.

"Is the house still under the Fidelius Charm?" she whispered, staring after the couple; even the dog had not looked back at them.

"No, not Fidelius. But it still has many enchantments on it that make it unnoticeable to Muggles. Once you're on the landing, you're hidden by those enchantments too." Harry gestured through the open door. "After you," he said casually.

Ginny took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold of her new home, the first magical establishment she had been in for three and a half years... a fact bought home to her by the lamps along the length of the hallway flaring into life without anyone flicking a switch.

If she had not known better, she would have thought she was in an entirely different house. The horrible green flock wallpaper had been removed and the walls were a beautiful, restful eggshell blue which was offset by the white of the deep skirting boards, the carved cornices and the ceiling. The lamps were half globes of embossed glass that diffused the soft light upwards. The honey tones of the hardwood floor was covered the full length of the hallway by a beautiful blue and scarlet carpet runner.

"Come on." Harry spoke close to her ear. I'll show you up to your room and we can put Bonnie down... I don't think she'll wake up until the morning." Harry led the way up the stairs which were also covered with the same runner that graced the hallway.

Even though Harry had told her that the house had been cleaned and decontaminated, Ginny found herself staring at the spot on the wall at the base of the stairs where Walburga Black's foul, shrill and opinionated portrait had once hung. The walls along the staircase where the horrible Elfs' heads once hung, were now graced with paintings, mostly depicting bucolic country scenes; the whole was homey and peaceful and very, very attractive. Ginny wondered if Harry was solely responsible for the decor or whether perhaps Hermione had helped him.

Another question to add to the ever-expanding list.

The first landing was as different to Ginny's recollection as the hallway and staircase were; the trim was the same bright white as below, as were all of the doors opening onto the landing, but the walls here were a soft green, little more than a pale wash. Harry opened the door to the room Ginny recognised as the one she and Hermione had shared all those years ago.

She stood in the open doorway and her lips parted into a perfect 'O' of delighted surprise. It was beautiful... a room that any half feminine woman would love. The walls in here were a soft pink wash with a floral wallpaper runner gracing the walls at the height of the top of the doors. The ghastly dark furniture had been removed and a modern setting, including the bed, and bedside drawers, a dressing table and a tallboy and large wardrobe had taken up residence. There was also a beautiful, squashy chintz covered chair angled in a corner. The soft furnishings were the same floral as the wallpaper runner; the effect was pretty, light and airy.

Harry disappeared through a door that had not been there in 1995. When Ginny could drag herself away from the beautiful room, which was going to be her room for who knew how long, she crossed the soft, dusty-pink carpet and stood in the doorway and surveyed the small area Harry had set up for her daughter.

The carpet carried through into here. A little bed with a head and base carved with fairies, birds and vines stood against the far wall. Harry was removing a very floppy Bonnie's coat, and shoes. Ginny stood and watched as he pulled the covers over her daughter and bent to kiss her cheek... he might have been her father.

Why couldn't he have been her father?

Ginny's eyes filled with tears and she bit her lip. She crossed her arms tightly around her midriff and turned away, stumbling to her new bed and lowering herself onto the edge. She watched as Harry reached behind the door to hang up the little pink parka; Ginny assumed there was a peg on the back of the door. When he pulled the door fully open again, Ginny noticed the individual letters in different pastel colours, making up Bonnie's name, adhered to the wall above the bed. Like everything she had seen to date, the little room was beautiful; as with her room, a great deal of effort had been expended to make it perfect. Harry had taken into account that Bonnie and Ginny had always slept in the same room and he had managed to keep them together while giving them their own space. She knew she was never going to be able to repay him for his thoughtfulness.

Harry sat down on the edge of the bed next to Ginny but he didn't try to touch her. She continued to stare at the tiny hump her daughter made under the dancing daisy-covered duvet. She widened her eyes to try and stop the tears that were gathering there from falling. "You've done so much," she whispered in a quavering voice. "Why would you do all this?"

Harry didn't answer for a while; he too stared through the open door at the little body curled up under the pretty duvet. Finally he said, "I think it's time to give yourself permission to be happy."

TBC...