Ginny

I'm turning into my mother, Ginny thought. At the first sign of a crisis, here she was, baking scones. It wasn't the first sign, of course. Thank goodness. Saturday morning had been horrific. First Teddy, then James, then Harry had just left her. She hadn't known whether they were safe but she had known that they were not happy. She sighed. It all felt so recent, but now it was Tuesday and, although none of them were here at home with her, she did know where they all were, and she was expecting them to be here at tea time. Hence the scones. Just how happy they all were now remained to be seen. All she could provide was love, listening and baked goods. If nothing else, she could stuff their mouths if they started talking crap. She laughed at herself: that plan at least was more Ginny than Molly.

Harry still wasn't talking, not really. He did seem to be listening. It didn't matter that it was Lily he was listening to and not her. At least he wasn't listening to Bill. Hopefully, he would manage to listen to James and Teddy when they got here this evening.

She couldn't stop herself from worrying about what all this disruption was going to do to James' Apprenticeship. He was the most academically able of her children and he didn't have any other ambitions, never had had. It would be such a shame if he lost his chance over an affair. No, she didn't mean that, she meant bad timing. It would have been nice if he could have got together with his one true love, developed his father's acceptance of the relationship, and started his vocational training at different times. Life never did seem to work out that way, though, did it?

Of course, what would have been ideal would have been if James had managed to be open with the two of them about his sexuality, and then waited for Harry to get his head round that, before falling in love with Teddy and courting him (she really was becoming her mum, what an old-fashioned idea), had Teddy's new position in the family acknowledged, then started having sex with him after that. Not been discovered by his father in the act of... whatever it had been; she'd not asked.

James' Patronus had been such a relief. She and Lily had been sitting with Harry, who was clearly in shock, when the familiar gazelle had appeared. She had been so proud of James in second year when he had mastered such a difficult spell so young. The message hadn't been long, and there had been a surliness to its delivery, but they had known that he and Teddy were both safe and that they were together.

Harry had sighed. "Got it all wrong, didn't I?" He had stared at his hands. "Still don't like it," he'd muttered.

Ginny had decided there and then that the whole family (and the family had always included Teddy, nothing had really changed there) needed to sit down together and talk things through. There had been scones in the plan from its conception. Lily was meant to be helping her to prepare, she had promised that she would. It was still the summer holidays, though, and Ginny knew better than to expect a teenager out of school to wake before midday.

She had Owled James at work, and had thanked him for letting them all know that he was safe, downplaying just how grateful she was for that Patronus, and had invited James and Teddy to tea on Tuesday. It had been lovely to see their old family owl return with a note almost immediately, especially when it had been an acceptance of the invitation. Just that; no news. But a row of kisses on the bottom like the ones he had sent her when he'd first started Hogwarts. Those had made her cry with joy.

For all her love for Harry, she had never pretended to fully understand him. There was too much strangeness in his past. She couldn't make him accept their son's love life. She just hoped that everyone was going to be friendly at tea time. All she could do, was to use her mother's treacle tart recipe to put Harry in a good mood. She Accio-ed the notebook which was filled with Molly's handwriting from its shelf. She thought she could hear movement in the bathroom above her. If that was Lily, then her daughter could start making her famous butterfly buns once she had breakfasted. It would all be alright, Ginny promised herself. It would all be alright.