Chapter Title: Chapter 78 Part TWO
Author's Notes: Thank you Arnel for beta'ing!
If you can, please go support me on . Sarah Jaune. It would mean a lot and you get more of my writing there.
I am still trying to stick to a schedule. I appreciate your patience.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
Ginny was grateful to have Al home for dinner, but she had to admit she was sorry for the reason. Nat had met Rick that day and she could tell just by looking at her son that he'd followed Nat home because he was absolutely jealous of what had happened between Nat and the other boy like her. Nat seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that Al was pining over her as she continued to discuss the whole situation with Harry and her father. They had another meeting with Rick the next day, but after comparing their magic for a while, Harry had called a halt to the whole thing when he realized it was dinner time and Nat would need to get home to eat.
"I didn't manage to get any work done on the wands," Nat told the table at large. "I sent an owl to Ollivander and told him I might need some extra time, but he said I have him so well stocked that he'd started to sell to other wand makers just to make room."
"I'm really pleased you found a job that suits you so well," Curtis told his daughter. "I was wondering what you were going to do with life."
"Well," Nat said as she suddenly found the peas on her plate very interesting. "It wasn't a job I envisioned, but it's something I'm really good at. Thankfully, I can work from home."
She saw Curtis open his mouth to ask her what job she had wanted and then close it again. Nat's shoulders were hunched and it was clear she didn't want to speak of it.
"Well," Ginny smiled at everyone at the table. "Who wants seconds?"
Ginny waited until she was alone with Harry in their room before she asked the questions she really wanted to ask. "What is the kid like?"
Harry paused in undoing the buttons on his shirt to stare at her. "You mean Rick?"
"Yes," Ginny said, trying not to be impatient that he hadn't read her mind. She inwardly grinned at herself. She'd been married a long, long time at this point and sometimes it felt like Harry should intuitively know exactly what she was thinking at all times, but sadly that was rarely the case. To be fair, she didn't always know what he was thinking, either, but she still had an easier time of it.
Harry paused in what he was doing to sit on the bed, looking at her but not really seeing her. "Ricky is incredibly powerful."
"Nat said as much," Ginny agreed, by way of a prompting to please add something she hadn't already heard. "He has magic just spilling out of him."
"Yeah," Harry agreed with a slight grin. "Meeting him is an experience because everyone can feel it. It's like being around a live wire, as the Muggles say." At her blank look, he shook his head. "The point is, it's… uh, it's like static shock constantly when you're around him."
"Ohhhh," Ginny breathed out, finally cottoning on to what he meant. "Wow… that would be uncomfortable."
"It can be," Harry agreed as he stood back up again and resumed getting ready for bed. "But if you're not right next to him, it's not so bad. I can tell he didn't like knowing that all of his magic was spilling out of him. He didn't realize it until Nat saw it and pointed it out. I imagine he'll try really hard to get that under control in the next few years."
Ginny waited until he'd pulled on his nightshirt before she asked, "Do you trust him?"
Harry waited a long beat before he shrugged. "He passed all my tests, including the truth serum. He has no current intention to harm Nat or anyone else. But he's so powerful… I can see that going badly at some point."
As Ginny lay next to him, staring up at the ceiling and listening to his soft breathing, she wondered if it would be someone they knew, or thought they knew, and trusted who would be their downfall. It all felt so tentative, even though they were doing everything in their power to keep their whole family safe. Still, she couldn't live her life like Mad-Eye Moody, worried that every single napkin was out to get her or her family.
Or maybe, just maybe, Moody had the right idea… all the way up until the moment he was locked in the trunk.
~*~
Rose stepped out of the fireplace into Andrew's locked office and breathed out a sigh of relief when she spotted her husband at his desk. It had been a long day. She'd missed putting Claire to bed and she was going to sleep for only a few hours before she was up again to keep going on the project of figuring out how to stop the virus from spreading and killing the Muggles.
Andrew glanced up as she used her wand to clean off the soot. The dim light of the lamps cast shadows throughout the room and made him appear just as tired as she felt. They hadn't had a good day in their house in over a week. "Hey," she said with a small smile as he pushed back from his seat and rounded the desk to pull her into his arms.
His kiss was brief, but then he simply held onto her and she felt the stress and exhaustion begin to quake through her as she melted into his embrace. She was so, so tired, and yet she needed this man and for him to be here, doing just this, until the trembling subsided into something manageable.
She wondered if the staff had cleaned the office today between ten and noon, as they did every week, but then noticed that yes, the carpet had fresh marks from the vacuum. It was odd having Muggle staff and keeping them in the dark about what was going on. Their plan was to keep the staff on as long as they wanted, but when they wanted to move on or retire, replacing them with magical staff. With this office being connected to the Floo, it was off limits to the Muggle staff except those two hours every week. Everyone knew not to use it at that point.
But it was one more complication they didn't really need in their lives. Still, the staff was loyal and loving and she didn't want anyone to leave who didn't want to leave.
"Come on," Andrew said gently as he flicked his wand to extinguish the lamps. "Let's get you to bed."
She let him lead her through the house towards their room. She wanted to tell him about the progress they'd made, none, and the hours they were working, too many, and the pressure they were all under to make things happen, which was intense. She wanted to tell him about learning today that she would be working with Nat and Rick to try to come up with a solution for the whole thing, even though she was only in her second year to become a potions master. She wanted to talk to him about the professors above her who were extremely put out that she was getting what they saw as preferential treatment because they didn't understand about Nat and the secrets around her. All they knew it she was being sent to work with Rick, the 'wonder boy' from America, and she might end up with all the glory for solving the whole thing.
She didn't want the glory, fame, or recognition for this. She just wanted to sleep and as he began to undress her, her body decided that it didn't need to talk. She just needed him and his touch. She turned into him and pressed herself against him, wanting to feel more of that tug that they'd been missing this past week. They hadn't gone a week without making love, and this week had been so bad that they had missed every chance. "I need you," she told him quietly.
She heard him suck in his breath and knew he'd been feeling it, as well, but likely holding back for her sake. "You're dead on your feet."
She smiled up at him, "I'll sleep better after."
It was all the encouragement he needed to bend his head towards her, kissing her gently, before running his lips over her neck and to her shoulder which he bared for his mouth. "I have missed you this week," he told her.
They undressed slowly and made love the same way, not the fiery passion that had been most of their time together as newlyweds, but slow and tender and so beautiful it brought tears to her eyes. As she lay in his arms after, deliciously drowsy, she knew she'd been missing this more than she'd ever expected. Their soul bond had been crying out for this time and attention.
Her shaking was gone. Her fatigue stayed, but she knew she would be able to sleep now. "I love you," she whispered to him.
"I love you," he assured her. He pulled her in even closer, his warm skin melding to hers. "I hate seeing how much pressure you're under. I know how important this is, but it's still hard to watch."
They both understood completely. Their staff had all been quarantined here at the house. Some had moved their families into the house, just so they didn't have to be away from them. Food was delivered to the door and left there to be collected. The whole staff assumed Rose and Andrew were both working in the house and they had no idea that Rose left every day. Before she'd made a pretense of driving off in one of the cars to go to her classes. Then she'd park the car in a rented garage and Apparate away. Now, she had to pretend to be holed up in the house even though she left it constantly.
Poor Claire was desperately missing her classmates, but she had friends here because several of their household staff had children and they were all now living in the large manor.. They were all able to play together and to attend virtual classes over the internet. Rose had contemplated just hiring a private tutor for all of the children, and she still might, because she didn't think they were getting all they needed from the virtual school.
They had money. They had a lot of money. It was something she was still trying to get used to, and she wasn't sure it was going to sink in for a while. She had never been poor. She'd heard stories from her dad and Aunt Ginny about how they'd been very poor as they'd grown up. She'd heard about books that had to be taped together and never having new robes.
She'd heard all about it, but except for favored pieces of clothing passed down by cousins, Rose had always been given new clothes. She'd always had new toys at Christmas and new books when she wanted them. New books had never been a problem.
But compared to what she had now, she had grown up quite poor. It still amazed her just how grounded Andrew was with his level of wealth, but she'd quickly figured out why… they didn't live above their means. In her new role as Andrew's wife, she'd been to a few estate parties before the pandemic had shut things down. She'd met a lovely American lady who was the wife of an earl, and she'd spoken about how she'd not grown up in anything like the British society, but she was the child of a billionaire, so she knew what it was to have money. She'd been very interested, to the point of a little nosey, about Rose and her background, but she hadn't pressed Rose.
Before the pandemic there had been a lot of speculation about Rose and just who she was, who her family was, and why on earth Andrew would choose someone like her.
She feathered her fingers lightly along the skin of his chest and couldn't help but smile sadly. They had a bond that they'd formed many years ago through friendship when he was not going to be the Duke, through the tragic loss of his family, and also through the magical world. It might have been a true statement that strategically, their marriage made a lot of sense. Rose understood both the magical and Muggle worlds, and when they'd first spoken of marriage, it hadn't been for love.
But now she deeply loved this man and it had everything to do with his character and his kindness. "I was thinking about work," she told him and she felt his fingers still on the skin of her lower back.
"What were you thinking?" he asked her in a low voice.
"I was thinking I'd rather work for myself," Rose said with a long sigh. "Since we don't need me to earn an income, and I've seen just how much a workaholic can damage a family, I think I'd rather only take on projects that interest me or work consultant work for the Ministry, which I can always say no to doing." She leaned up so she could meet his eyes and said quietly, "I am determined to not be my mother."
"You're nothing like her," Andrew assured her as he leaned up to press his lips to her forehead. "Alright, you're just as smart as she is, but you aren't alike in temperament. But," he said with a long sigh, as she lay her head back on his shoulder. "I want you to be happy and you want to be a potions master. What you do with it after that is up to you. Find what makes you want to work."
"You only have the estate," she said as she let out a small snort. "I know that isn't exactly what you wanted to do."
"It's not so bad," he promised with a small chuckle. "I keep making more and more money, and that's always a bonus. I'm pretty good with that part of it."
She nodded and closed her eyes. "I can't do anything about my training schedule. I have little to no control over that or how much I have to work right now while they're trying to cure the Muggles. I wouldn't want it any other way, actually. My Muggle grandparents had to move in with my parents just to keep them safe and I know that hasn't been easy on anyone. We need a cure, but after we find it, I'm going to take a few days off. I hate not getting home in time to tuck Claire in bed."
"She has missed you, but she understands perfectly just how important the work is and no," he said, forestalling her protestations, "she isn't just like you or Hugo. Your mum had something important happen damn near every night of your lives and that went on for years. This is a crisis. It's not the same."
"It feels like it's the same," she admitted ruefully.
He shifted a little, something she'd come to realize meant he was a little uncomfortable. "She asked me tonight when we were going to have a baby."
Rose wasn't the least bit surprised the question had come up. Claire adored Victoire and Teddy's girls and she'd said, more than once, that she wanted a sister. Technically it would be a niece, but it was technical. "I'm sure you explained I have another year and a half of school and then I need to get my career off the ground."
"I did," Andrew agreed and he let out a long sigh. "Honestly, while I wouldn't mind it if we had a baby, I'm not sad to wait. I want more time with you and I don't want to split my attention away from Claire. She's been through so much and it's been so hard on her. Losing Aunt Emma was just another thing to pile on. Maybe she'd love to have a baby in the house, but then again, maybe she'd realize she'd lose all of our attention when a new baby comes. It would likely be best to wait until she's in Hogwarts full time."
Claire was eight and so they had another two and a half years to go before she'd board the train on September 1st. Rose would be twenty-two when that happened. "We'll see," she said. They were still so young and right now she just didn't feel like she had the headspace to add a child. "I want to enjoy our family as it is now."