Chapter 22: Open House

"Welcome to our little love nest!" Arms splayed wide while grinning from ear to ear, Audrey Weasley led through her tiny new foyer what amounted to a tour group, with her as its guide.

It was Valentine's Day week, and the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione were being given the grand tour of Percy and Audrey's new flat in London. The holiday had happened to fall on both a weekend and an outing to Hogsmeade, so Harry and Ron had met the girls in the wizarding village again before escorting them back by train into the city, to bunk overnight at the Burrow before coming to this, a snowy Sunday visit.

Ron shrugged off his girlfriend lightly admonishing him to wipe his feet as he clomped through the entryway and peeked into the meager sitting room, appraising the amenities of his brother and sister-in-law with a sweep of his eyes.

"It's not much…. but it's home."

Harry grinned. He recalled his best mate saying something of the same to him the first time he, Fred and George had brought him back to the Burrow. "I think it's right brilliant."

"Say, nice place, Perce!" Bill called out loudly, Fleur tucked into the crook of his arm.

Responding to his brother's call by way of a compliment, Percy now emerged from the kitchen, accepting his wife's kiss while absently wiping his hands on a tea towel. "Yes, well…. it'll do for now."

George absently scratched at the back of where his missing ear should have been. "Remind me, Perce – why exactly did you lot need to buy a flat again? Didn't you have your old one out near, what was it, Sussex?"

"My tenement building was burnt down, George. Remember? That Fiendfyre curse during the war."

"Snatchers were targeting those of us known to have been working with the Order of Mercy," Audrey chittered breathlessly to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny. "Your brother took a bit of the nasty stuff nearly to the face." She let out a shuddering breath, near tears. "He was very brave…"

"How much is it costing you, son?" Arthur wanted to know. Harry's brow furrowed bemusedly at the question – the Weasleys had never had much, true. By necessity, they were frugal but they had never been cheap. He had never known any of them to be overly concerned about cost or money.

"Oh, only about a hundred, 150 quid a week…." Percy curled an arm about his wife's waist, feeling her leaning into him with a beaming smile. "It's far less than what I was paying for that flat out near Sussex. Imagine if Audi and were living out there – starting over, on my pay! Why, damme, it makes me just as glad those ruddy Snatchers burned my place down!" From where she was standing right next to him, Harry heard Mrs. Weasley suck in a sharp breath, perhaps at the horrid thought of her middle and most mature son swearing, even casually. The matriarch now floated up to her daughter-in-law, guiding her maternally towards the kitchen.

"Now, dear: this downsizing wouldn't happen to be because you anticipate big changes coming down the pike? Say…. a little one on the way….?" Had it not been considered rude, Molly would have probably placed a hand on Audrey's mercifully still flat stomach for emphasis.

Overhearing her mum, Ginny groaned. "Not this again!..." She seized Harry's wrist. "Let's go!" She flounced herself and her boyfriend into the sitting room, Ron and Hermione scampering after her. The bushy-haired brunette witch's face was pink with embarrassment on Audrey's behalf. Ginny's cheeks were more red – lividly so.

"I do give Audrey credit," Ginny huffed, flopping down onto the couch, her auburn curls twisting about her head like tongues of flame. "Patiently parrying inquiries like that. It's just…. man! They're not even married six months, and Mum's already dropping hints about a grandchild! She's been after Bill and poor Fleur about the same thing!"

"What's this about 'poor Fleur?'" Ron warbled, amused. "I thought you didn't like the bird!"

Ginny's flushed cheeks now took on a more pinkish pallor. "She's grown on me, our Fleur. Anybody who has to deal with Mummy and her not-so-subtle hints every few weeks would have their esteem raised, in my eyes!"

Hermione bowed her head, picking at some lint on her skirt. "Well, it sounds to me like your mum is just thinking about the future, and her own kids' happiness…"

"No, she's thinking about her own sadness!" Ginny quipped. "Harry, didn't you say in one of your letters that you thought Mummy seemed more depressed after Audrey and Percy moved out?"

Harry shrugged. "Yeah."

Ginny pointed, smugly. "I rest my case. See, Mum likes it when the Burrow is full."

"I don't," Ron sniffed, finding an open bottle of Butterbeer on the drawing-side table and taking a hearty pull. He either didn't see, or chose to ignore, Hermione's face pinch in disapproval over him taking swigs from someone else's drink. "Weren't you and I relieved, mate, when Percy and Audrey finally moved out?"

Feeling caught in the middle, Harry coughed. "Well…. I remember us being….. happy that they had managed to place a bid and then the down payment…."

"Right," Ron nodded. "The baby birds are all grown up and leaving the nest - Mum's just going to have to learn to live with that." Perhaps fearing his comments could be misconstrued as insensitive, the redheaded boy quickly amended. "Not that we still won't visit, mind. I think she likes the Burrow being fit to burst because she's needed the company. It helps her distract from…." his voice trailed off before he could say his name. The quartet all glanced away from each other, the sudden wave of grief weighing them down.

From his place at the edge of the couch, Harry squirmed with disquiet. "Erm….. I suppose this is a bad time to mention that…. I've been thinking of moving out, too."

"What?!" Hermione yelped.

"Ssssh!" Ron hissed, glancing back frantically to make sure his parents, Percy, Audrey and the others were still chatting away in the kitchen. "Keep it dark, will you?!"

Even Ginny looked surprised. "Harry, love, if this is because of us going on about crowd control at the Burrow, we didn't mean to suggest that you….!"

"No, I've been thinking it over for a while," Harry assured her. He stared off into the middle distance, at the far wall of this flat, deep in thought. He could almost imagine conjuring the little Snitch that had held the Resurrection Stone in his mind's eye, watching it flitter in front of his vision as he concentrated on working through what he was going to say. "Gin, Ron…. Your parents have been so kind and good to me, truly…"

"Course they would! Mate – they love like a son….!" Ron half-bawled.

"…. and it's because they think so much of me that I don't want to take advantage of them any more than I already have!"

"Here now – what's all this?" Ginny frowned. "Taking advantage of them, indeed!"

"Gin:" and here Harry fixed his girlfriend with a pointed yet gentle stare. "How long have I been living with your folks?" She frowned, and he plowed on ahead in answering his own question before she could. "Nine months, nearly ten! I shacked up in your brother's room right after the Battle in May and I've never left! I haven't even paid rent! That's squatting, that is!"

"Bollocks!" Ron coughed. "You don't owe Mum and Dad a cent, and they would be the first to agree!" and Ginny and Hermione nodded fervently at his side.

"Nevertheless, I'm going to have to find some place to let, or maybe buy on the cheap, what with Ron's and my starting wages in the Auror Corps! I can't keep living off your parents' generosity forever!"

"But where would you go?" Hermione cried. "Not Privet Drive!"

"I couldn't, Hermione, even if I wanted to – which I don't. Dudley and Petunia told me when we met that day for coffee how Number 4 had been repossessed by the government."

Harry could see the gears turning in his girlfriend's head. "But…. but then that leaves…." Ginny lifted her head to him, blue eyes wide with something close to horror.

Harry nodded. "Grimmauld Place."

"Crikey! What a state!" Ron whistled, peering through the dimly lit foyer.

Harry chuckled. "Picked up some Aussie lingo, did you, Ronnie?" Ron shrugged, looking a little abashed.

Advancing cautiously towards the parlor of Number 12, Ginny shuddered. "I've never liked this place….. it's dark and… creepy…. Why, the place only really felt like a home when Sirius was here. And…. and Tonks…." She bowed her head, staving off a sniffle.

"Well, the best I can say for it is that I was expecting more cobwebs, what with nobody setting foot in here for close to a year and a half!" Hermione nodded in reluctant approval, if not so much at Harry's considering making this his home base than at the knowledge that someone was keeping this place clean. "However, I agree with Ginny: you can't stay here!"

"It's my property," Harry pointed out. "Sirius left it to me in his will! What else am I gonna do with it?"

"You could sell it," Ron offered up.

"To who? Not Muggles, surely – they don't even know the place is here!"

"Maybe you could donate it to the Ministry!" Ginny suggested. "Like, this was where the Order of the Phoenix met during the war! Give it to the Ministry, and I reckon they'd be happy to turn it into a historical site! Have a little marker out front…"

"What, like a museum?" Hermione frowned thoughtfully.

"Exactly! The place isn't suited for that much else, certainly not for someone living here – alone – full time!"

"Who says I would be living here alone?" Harry frowned. He turned expectantly and with a hopeful smile to Ron, but his best mate was making a concerted effort to look anywhere but at him.

"You do. Sorry, bub – you're on your own if you want to make this your bachelor pad!"

Harry stared at him, appalled. "You can't seriously tell me you'd rather stay at your parents' place than crash here?"

"Yeah," Ron quipped with a fervent, almost manic, nod. "I do."

Harry scowled. "Right help you are." A beat and then: "Doesn't matter. You weren't even first choice for my roommate anyway…"

At this, Ginny's eyes widened in dawning realization, even as Ron's own orbs narrowed into slits at same realization. "Harry James Potter, if you're asking what I think you're asking, I'll….. I'll…."

"Oh, come off it! I wasn't going to ask you that! Not to marry me!"

Ginny folded her arms over her chest prissily. "Then what were you going to ask me?"

Harry's hopeful smile was more of a wince. "That maybe…. after you're done with school…. You'd move in with me?" Behind him, he heard Hermionet let out a gasp.

"No," Ginny clipped. She didn't even have to take a beat to think about it.

"Why the bloody well not?"

"Mummy wouldn't approve of her only daughter living with a boy when I'm not married – that's bloody why not!"

"Firstly: since when have you ever cared about what your mum thinks? Secondly: you've lived with me at the Burrow and no one's said a damn word!"

"I meant living with you alone, Harry. Without anyone else in the house!"

Cringing, Ron started to raise his hand. "Hey, um, is it too late to take back what I said about not wanting to crash here?"

"YES!" Harry and Ginny turned and yelled at him as one. Ron dropped his arm back down, looking peeved.

"Look, I just thought I'd make the offer, because, well…." And Harry took Ginny's hands in his. "That's what we're going for, right? Eventually?"

Ginny sighed. "Yes, but not right now…. Harry – are you sure you'd be ready for this? For us to move in together?"

"Yes," Harry stressed. A beat as he searched her eyes. "Unless… you're not ready for that…." He didn't quite lilt the phrase up into the form of a question.

Ginny exhaled deeply. "I don't ruddy know. I mean, I….."

"Look, I know it seems dreary and drafty now, but if we fix the place up, throw back the curtains and let a little light in here…."

"That's not really what's keeping from jumping up and down at the idea," Ginny confessed.

"Well, then what is?" Harry demanded, baffled.

In answer, Ginny just smirked sadly before yelling out, "KREACHER!"

There was a SNAP! as the dirty house elf suddenly appeared in the young adults' midst; Ron let out a yelp of fright and staggered back into a standing lamp. Kreacher now gave Ginny a mocking bow. "The mistress of blood traitors requests my presence?"

Ginny glowered at him. "I am the mistress to your master, and I'll thank you to address me properly as such! Kreacher: how would you feel if Master Harry and I were to live here, at Grimmauld Place?"

"I would hate it," Kreacher declared immediately, beady little eyes gleaming.

"Horrible! Horrible!" Hermione gasped with almost dramatic horror. Despite having a soft spot for almost all house elves, Kreacher was the awful sort who could try even the clever witch's well of compassion.

Ron leaned into Harry. "You really want to live here, with my sister and this ugly thing?" He muttered it low, yet Kreacher heard him anyway. Though far from taking offense, the house elf, in fact, seemed to relish in the disgust.

"For I am ugly too, traitor Weasley, ain't it?"

"You are certainly plain," Ron sneered, ignoring for the moment being called a blood traitor.

"And I'm three-cornered too, ain't I?"

"Well, triangular in the way that our Teddy would probably draw a triangle – all squashed like," Hermione mused only half to herself.

"And that's another thing!" Ginny seized on triumphantly. "Teddy!"

"What about him?" Harry shrugged.

"Do you really think Andromeda is going to let you bring a child into this place? With this ugly cretin?" Ginny gestured to Kreacher, who hardly seemed to take any offense.

"That's right! I'm ugly and they hate me for it! For you all hate me, don't you?" The foursome ignored Kreacher. "From such a face and form as mine, the noblest sentiments sound like the black utterances of a depraved imagination! It is wizard nature – I'm resigned!"

"You can't resign, prat," Ron snorted. "Harry owns you. He can only free you!"

Hearing this, Ginny's eyes gleamed. Surreptitiously, she bent down, pretending to tie her shoes.

Harry spotted her and frowned hard. "No. Don't even try it."

Ginny grunted and withdrew a hand from her sock. "Well, excuse me for trying to think of your godson's welfare! You can't have our Teddy around the likes of him!"

"So, I won't," Harry shrugged her off. "I'd be in here playing with Ted and Kreacher would be off doing chores somewhere else!"

"Well, I'm not spending time around the likes of him, forget about living here!"

Harry scratched at the back of his neck. There was a long silence and then….

"What if I told you this would only be temporary?"

Ginny turned to him, cocking one eyebrow. "I'm listening…."

Harry sighed. "I thought that this could be a temporary situation, because….. because…. I have this goal, see, and it involves buying my parents' old place in Godric's Hollow. Fixing it up, once I've saved away enough nest egg."

Ginny gawped at him, her face going to war with itself over whether to melt or squirm. "Do you have like some weird morbidity fetish around houses or something? Your parents died in that house! You nearly died in that house!"

"I know," Harry sighed. "But, Ginny…. It's my dream. And right now, no matter where we'd live, I would only want to live that dream with you…" He didn't notice how Hermione was clasping her hands together and smiling, tears threatening unbidden.

Ginny studied him for a long moment, skeptical, sizing him up. At long last, she let out a shaky breath and smiled weakly. "All right…."

"Really?" Harry's eyes bulged.

She smirked, twittering. "Always the tone of surprise…" Another sigh. "OK…. Yes. I may need to get used to the idea of living in dank, dreary places once owned by dead people, but…. for you, my love…. Yes."

Ecstatic, Harry took Ginny's face in his hands, tilted it back and kissed her soundly on the mouth. She squeaked in surprise before quickly melting into the embrace.

"Well…." Ron clapped his hands together with a soft smile. "I reckon this calls for a celebration!" He nudged Hermione towards the small piano in the corner. "Play something for us, love."

Smirking in amusement, Hermione flicked back her skirts when Ron pulled out her seat for her, daintly sat down on the bench, lifted her dainty fingers over the keys, and began to play. She even sang a little:

"If you say come with me, off to Massachusetts, then to Massachusetts we will go… We will buy dishes there, maybe even two-sets…. Buy the finest china then we'll dine awhile on crepes suzettes…."

Staring with pride at his girl, and with enthusiasm unrestrained, Ron began to sing along, painfully off-key. Mercifully, no one – not his sister, not his girlfriend, not his best mate – bothered to tell him.