Author's Note: As I am almost finished with the writing of what I'm calling the scar arch, and this chapter is ready, I thought I'd give you all something on this day that I took off for a train journey so maybe I can get some reviews to read on the way back. I hope you all enjoy a little more of this work.
Chapter Thirteen The Patriarch
Arthur Weasley sat on a bench beside the door to his shed on the morning of New Year's Eve, sipping the coffee that he'd made in his recently rebuilt muggle coffee maker. It had taken a long time for him to figure out how to get it to work. Molly didn't like it, but that might also be due to the fact that Molly didn't like coffee. In any case, he hadn't been able to convince her to let him install it in the kitchen, so he had to go out to the shed for what one muggle company advertised as the best part of waking up.
It wasn't the best part, that Arthur reserved for certain early morning activities with Molly, activities that his youngest child was no doubt experiencing with her new husband, judging from her poorly silenced door. Well, not really poorly silenced. There was no way that Ginny knew about the bypass that he'd put on all of his children's doors. No good parent allowed their minor children to completely silence their rooms. There was simply too much risk of an unmonitored child getting into trouble to allow any spell to completely block out such monitoring.
So there were spells, special ones, deliberately not put in any book at Hogwarts, that allowed monitoring of one's child's bedroom. He would have to consider taking them off Bill and Charlie's room, since that was where they were housing Harry and Ginny from now on, and quite frankly, he really didn't want to think about his little girl doing the actions that resulted in her current pregnancy.
"Good Morning, Mr. Weasley," came the voice of his first granddaughter. "Where did you get that coffee mug?"
"Good Morning Elizabeth, please call me Grandfather, as I remind you that you're family now," Arthur said. "As for where I got this delightful 'Stay Grounded' mug, Perkins got it for me a couple years ago after a rather shocking experience in Drax North Yorkshire. I'm not entirely certain what it means, but my colleague in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office said he'd been told that it was the perfect gift for someone who got a little too close to an generating plant's transformers."
"Really, Grandfather," Elizabeth said. "Did you not see the High Voltage signs?"
Arthur coughed slightly before replying. "I'm afraid that I didn't know what they meant at the time, and I don't think I arrived in the right place to see them. The apparition point map was a little out of date in that area. It hadn't been updated since 1966. I believe we're doing a lot better at the apparation point map updates now.
"So, Elizabeth, what brings you out to my shed this early in the morning?"
"My baby is not letting me sleep in," Elizabeth groused. "A kick in the bladder, and I'm running to the loo early in the morning. At least no one was in it this time."
"Ah, I heard about you bursting in on Ron a couple days ago when he was showering," Arthur said. The conversation between him and his youngest son on pregnant girls and loo priorities had been one of the more uncomfortable ones for any of his sons, that he was sure of. Especially since Ron had almost immediately after been interrupted by Ginny running to the loo when he was washing his hands for Breakfast.
"I kind of feel sorry for Ron, especially when Hermione stopped over and found out, and had to ask me about Ron's freckles. I really shouldn't have replied like I did with a real answer."
"Elizabeth, in this house, that was actually the perfect reply."
"You'll find that if the truth is worth some gentle embarrassment, my children will take it," Arthur said. "You're probably safe from it for a couple reasons at the moment, you're new enough to the family that they don't know enough to embarrass you, and they've recently been reminded that teasing a pregnant woman is not advisable."
"I don't have Ginny's spell knowledge to get them back, if they tried," Elizabeth said. "I'm not sure what I should be calling her now, I mean, legally, she's my mother now, but she's only a few years older than I am, and it feels strange."
"Talk to her," Arthur said. "If I know my daughter, she'll probably say to keep calling her Ginny, which I noticed that you already are doing. Now, can I feel that kicking baby? It's been so long, and Ginny seems to be avoiding me."
"She's kind of afraid you're disappointed in her," Elizabeth said, before slapping her hand over her mouth.
"I know," Arthur said, his hand now on Elizabeth's belly. "Strong one there. While I may have hoped she'd get out of Hogwarts before she had her first, I never could be truly disappointed in my fire ball. Of all my children, she's been the most determined of them. Once she set upon her course to give Harry a summer romance, I really knew it was going to happen. Weasley's, you will find are a family of many passions, and unfortunately, an immunity to contraceptive potions."
"Really?"
Arthur tilted his head, before admitting his lie. "The passions is true, but the contraceptive potion immunity ... that's actually my poor attempt at trying to keep my sons from making me a grandfather while they were still at Hogwarts. Don't tell them."
As Head of Gryffindor, Harry couldn't spend the entire break at the Burrow. Some allowance had been made for his honeymoon with Ginny, of course. He had been required to return early, however, to take a turn as the Head of House on duty. Severus, it was still taking some getting used to calling Professor Snape by his first name, and Severus was the Head of House closest to his age, had been surprised that he wasn't going to be left in charge for another stint when Pomona left for an overnight conference in Panama.
"Potter," Snape said, greeting the Defense Professor as he arrived via the flue. "Per the Headmaster's instructions, you are now the point of contact for the sixteen students that stayed behind for Yule."
"I know the three in Gryffindor, Luna Lovegood in Ravenclaw, plus Susan Bones who I know returned early, Zacharias Smith, Owen Caldwell, and Rose Zellar in Hufflepuff, but the Slytherin list wasn't out when I left with Ginny for our honeymoon," Harry stated
"The Irish first years girls in Slytherin, Fiona Faust, Ciara Connolly, Saoirse O'Shea, and Caoimhe Casey," Snape said.
"The four leprechauns," Harry said, recalling the four redheaded girls with the mischievous grins who sat in a group on the left side of his classroom. "I take it they've been their usual?"
"Overly excitable dunderheads who cause potions to explode by their very presence, passing by the room," Snape replied. "No change, save that Miss O'Shea overdosed on a hair growth potion and spent Boxing Day under Poppy's care. She had three yards of hair by the time she reached the Hospital Wing. The other four Slytherins staying behind are Gregory Goyle, Vincient Crabbe, Rastillion Gaul, and Pansy Parkinson. Miss Parkinson stayed to avoid going alone to the Malfoy ball after Malfoy broke up with her. I advise that you watch the interaction between her and Bones, as rumor says that Draco kissed her at the ball"
Harry's right eyebrow rose. "Thanks for the warning," Harry said, as he felt a sudden pain in his scar.
"Something wrong, Potter?" Snape asked.
"Scar just had a sharp pain," Harry said. "It's probably nothing."
"If it happens again, I expect to hear that you stopped by to see Poppy," Snape said.
"Ginny will kill me if I don't," Harry replied. "Enjoy your time off, Professor."
"Not likely," Snape ended, before sweeping out of the room, his cloak floating outward.
Harry headed to his office, where the students would expect him, at least until lunch time. It was a shame that Ginny couldn't flue at the moment to join him. He was sure that he was going to miss his wife, and all the Weasleys.
Ginny Potter was giving up her attempt at an afternoon nap. She'd been advised to take one by her mother. It wasn't the first time she'd laid down in the afternoon for an hour. Every time Professor Snape told her not to come to Double Potions due to the potion they were covering not being good for pregnancies, she'd find her way to Harry's Office for a nap. There she'd often lay on the couch, her legs over Harry's lap, as he graded papers. It was usually a pleasant nap.
This time, her baby had decided that she was not going to get a single wink of sleep. After a good fifteen or so minutes, trying to get comfortable as the baby kicked her, she rolled out of bed. She left what had been Charlie and Bill's bedroom and waddled to the stairs, taking a brief look at her old room where Elizabeth's baby allowing her to take a nap, before going down the last flight of stairs into the kitchen.
As soon as she reached the bottom, her right hand went to the small of her back, as she straighten up. With the way her belly had grown lately, she'd started to look forward and down as she went down the stairs, very carefully.
"Baby not letting you nap?" her mother suddenly said, from her position at the counter, looking out on the snow covered garden.
"It won't stop moving," Ginny groused. "It was kinda neat when it started to kick, but now ... I am so tired, but the moment I stop moving and close my eyes, it moves."
"Still not finding out if you're having a boy or a girl?" her mother asked, turning around.
"Nope," Ginny said, before sticking out her tongue, conveying her defiance in the same manner she'd always done.
"Well, I do have to admit that after Percy, I didn't ask, either. I did know you were a girl, but that was the result of a rant following the healer asking if I wanted to know. I'd given up on having a girl."
"And you had me believing that you kept trying until you had me, the girl," Ginny smiled softly.
"Trying until I had a girl was you're father's idea," her mother said. "He really wanted to prove that Weasleys could have girls. My mother said he was insane to want a girl, and that I would regret it."
"You would regret it?" Ginny replied. "All the boys you had to have to get me, or me?"
"Both really," her mother said. "And I admit that having your brothers so close together, was probably a mistake. You, on the other hand, a probably Mum's curse to have an irrepressible tomboy doomed to inflict every trouble that I gave to her on me."
"You, an irrepressible tomboy, the one who kept insisting dressing me up as a princess in that awful pink dress?" Ginny exclaimed. "The one who kept me from riding a broom until I got to Hogwarts!"
"I was aware of your midnight flights since you were six. I do have the clock, dear. As for my tomboyness. I grew up with two brothers, and my best pre-Hogwarts friends were both boys. You had Luna to even things out."
"Luna?" Ginny said incredulously. Luna was her partner-in-crime, growing up until her mother died. It was not uncommon for the two to gang up on Ron when he said girls couldn't do something. And as for Fred and George, they knew better than to stop her and Luna from doing anything that boys their age could do. "You can actually say that after some of the things that Luna got up to?"
"I'm certain that you're about to cite some things like both of you ganging up on Ron, Fred, and George in the great gnome war, or the infamous Burrow slide," her mother said. "But, my dolls sometimes never got out of the box. You conducted a marriage to your Harry Potter doll. Not to mention the infamous tea party where you got Ron, Fred, George, and Percy to dress in party dresses."
"That was revenge for them not letting me play with them," Ginny said firmly. "And it was your idea." She'd been looking for a way to get back at her older brothers for what had seemed to her to be a particularly unfair exclusion from their games. Her mum had been her co-conspirator for it, and the pictures had been duplicated and preserved such that they'd never be able to live it down.
"I will give you that, Ginny, but you're now a mother of a girl, and about to have another baby," her mum said. "I've talked to Elizabeth since you brought her for Christmas. She wants to be active, more than just a girl with a baby. She looks up to you, and I think she's going to be every bit of that tomboy that you have always been, especially when Summer comes around again. I don't know what your plans are for the Summer. If you don't know them, yet talk to Harry, but I've promised Elizabeth that I'll give her time to still be a child by watching hers this summer."
"Thank you Mum," Ginny said as she moved to hug her mother. With her own baby filling her belly, it wasn't the same as the hugs she used get from her mother. She couldn't fit so close to her Mum. There was some space between their upper bodies that she just wasn't used to being there. She leaned forward a bit, bringing her head to her Mum's left shoulder.
"You and Harry are doing a good thing, taking Elizabeth in," her mother said. "I think you're a little too young to be a mother, and Harry a father, but your heart is in the right place, you know your family will support you, and Harry has a good job. However, he is the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor."
Ginny sighed. It was a worry to her. He had been given a ten-year contract, but there was the fact that it had been three decades since a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had severed a second year. She had talked about it with Harry before, as early as the night before the night where she'd snuck out with strawberry wine and gotten pregnant by him. Fortunately, the Potter account hadn't been touched for over a decade, and several widows who had lost their only child to Death Eaters had fatten the account with bequests. In fact, Harry had commented that it was as if the Potter Account had been earning 150% interest over the time.
Ginny would not be hurting for money if Harry outlived her. "Harry and I have gone over the family finances, and I think we're okay with that part. I don't want to think about Harry dying, though."
"None of us do, but you're a mother now, and as many of my generation found out, it's something you have to do. You need to be prepared for the worst, while hoping for the best."
That was when the fire turned green and the Hogwarts Healer's head appeared in it.