Compilation of Hinny Works

by LegendDairy

I've got too many Hinny one-shots, and there are more coming. So they are all going to be posted here instead of individual stories. And Harry/Ginny pairings only, no others. Will be updated sporadically.

65. Conquests

AN- This one was requested by HPGWHGRWShadow. Not exactly this, but this adjacent.

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Conquests

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The sweat was dripping down the side of her face from her hairline. It was an uncomfortable feeling and pulling her focus away from getting her pattern just right; jab, jab, knee, swing, uppercut. Again and again she made the moves, never staying in one spot for too long, dancing around her opponent, dodging their own attacks.

Most of the other Aurors did this out of obligation only. Most of them had gotten too relaxed and kept only the bare minimum of physical fitness hours. She and Chris Johnson though, they were likely to be found in the gym every morning before work.

It had taken her a while to convince him not to hold back with her. He was a big hulk of a man, the kind that could make his pecs do that dance to attempt intimidation. She was dwarfed by him, which made her quicker. Being a moving target was her biggest advantage when fighting against him. It had been her biggest advantage against her brothers as well. That and being sneaky.

It had taken months to convince him to spar with her, and about the same amount of time for her to finally get in a win against him. Punching him was the equivalent of punching a stone statue; It bloody hurt. The first time she swore she heard a crack before screaming out in profanity from the pain in her hand, sure enough there had been a hairline fracture to a bone in her pointer finger that had been healed in a moment by the Healer, and it had Chris chuckling at every time he looked at her for a week.

She'd found his Achilles Heal though. And it was actually his heal. It was like he'd heard the story of Achilles and took a dip in the River Styx himself to attempt being invincible himself.

When she'd found it he'd swept her legs and she was flat on her back, from there she'd spun around and laced her own legs between his on the ground, bringing her elbow down hard on his right ankle, inadvertently hitting a nerve on his heel that left him howling in pain and tapping out.

Oh, the victory she'd felt that day.

It kept them both fresh doing the Muggle sparring like they did. It was a rush as well.

"Heard about the new case we're getting chucked at us today?" he asked in his low, rumbling voice before he attempted to get her in a choke hold.

He was equally as sweaty as she was. It was disgusting but meant that she could slip easily between his arm and his chest, bringing her elbow down just above his knee as she did. He was familiar with that move though and knew which arm she favored for doing it, so he stepped his foot back and she rolled away and sprang to her feet to face him once more.

"Yeah, heard about it. I'm sure there's at least one guy that'll want that assignment. It's a babysitting job but look at who the protection detail is for," she scoffed and went for a feigning frontal attack and danced under his arm which was brought up, exposing his arm pit. Ginny gave him a jab there, right under the arm.

"Buggering fuck!" he cried out from the pain of it.

"Isn't that the way you like it?" she grinned at his choice of profanity and gave a wink.

"I'm normally the one doing the buggering," he snarled, not finding the humor in it. Once again giving her more detail about his relationship with his boyfriend than she wanted to know.

Ginny gave a giggle and danced a bit from foot to foot. "Do you concede defeat?"

Chris gave a growl. "Yeah, fine," he said through clenched teeth as he held the spot on his arm. "Guess your rating is now one in fifty instead of one in a hundred."

"Hey, one in fifty against you means I've a 99% chance of beating anyone else," she reasoned happily and finally stopped moving, save for to wipe the sweat still dripping down the side of her face. "Fuck, I need a shower."

"And breakfast," he said, sounding equally as exhausted and ready for a break as she felt.

Twenty minutes later and Ginny was fresh as a daisy and sitting in the morning meeting with the other Aurors, leaning back in her chair with her feet crossed up on the desk and eating a chocolate croissant while everyone else filed in and filled up the seats around her.

There wasn't much going on in the United Kingdom right now. Cases were at a low, some illegal substance smuggling, a few bad seeds getting in over their head down Knockturn Alley, nothing they hadn't all handled before. There weren't any Death Eaters stepping out of line anymore or any Serial Killers that needed to be caught right now.

That was probably why this new case was coming up for them.

She was a fan of Quidditch, not for Puddlemere, but still. She had eyes so she could appreciate the target of the case; Harry Potter was a fine-looking piece of arse, those eyes of his were fucking gorgeous and coupled with that knicker dropping crooked smile of his it was no wonder that he had some crazy stalker after him.

The Puddlemere team manager was friends with the Head Auror, that was another reason why they were getting called in for protection detail.

The room settled down when Robards walked in. Ginny gave a yawn and then took a sip of her coffee while he projected the case on the board behind him.

"You've all heard about this one by now; we've got a Professional Quidditch player that has received harassing owls, and his known 'associations'," which meant women he'd shagged, "have been sent threatening owls and some of the letters containing itching powder, Bubotuber puss and the like."

The names of these women were then projected on the screen and Ginny noticed the male Aurors around her nodding in appreciation and jealousy at the sheer number of them. Harry Potter was a known player on and off the field. He'd come out of nowhere when he was nineteen and been an instant rising star. With that came the gaggle of women with their mouths hanging open just begging for the chance to suck him off in a loo, or more.

Ginny finished eating her breakfast as she simultaneously copied down the names onto her own parchment. She recognized a good deal of them from school.

"What time frame are we looking at here, sir?" Johnson asked from beside Ginny. "How far back does this list go?"

"The threats began five months ago, this is from that timeframe," Robards told them.

Another murmur of appreciation went around.

"Fuck, I hope they've all been tested," Ginny said under her breath and finished copying down the twenty second, and last, name. Chris, who was the only one that heard her, snorted into his coffee.

"I still wouldn't say no to him," he told her quietly.

"I'm sure David will be so happy to hear that."

"Hey, if Potter's willing to join us David wouldn't say no either," Johnson smirked.

Ginny managed to turn her laugh into a cough and struggled to get her buttery pastry the rest of the way down her throat.

"Something funny, Weasley?" Robards called out.

She coughed and shook her head. "No. Sorry, sir," she got out as she regained control of herself, still attempting to get the mental image of Chris, his boyfriend David, who wasn't as buff, but still a good-looking guy, and Harry Potter all tangled up in bedsheets out of her mind.

"Good, because I'm putting you on his protection detail."

She was so happy she wasn't sipping coffee at that moment because it would have been sprayed across the room.

Ginny had never considered she would have been the one called to give protection detail.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"You're the perfect bait. We'll set you for protection detail at his flat while the rest of us are searching for clues as to who this perp is. Potter has agreed to allow an Auror to stay at his for no more than one month. And I don't want this taking any longer than a month," he warned them all.

'Perfect bait' she repeated in her mind.

There were a few female Aurors. It wasn't a popular career choice for anyone anymore, let alone for women. Her mum had an absolute cow when she found out that Ginny was going into the profession, and Ginny was one of only three female Aurors in her age range and the only one with her original surname.

Yay, the perks of being single, she thought dryly.

"Oh, Sir, did you just call me pretty?" she asked teasingly and batted her eyelashes at him.

It was always fun watching him try to keep his composure after someone quipped at him. He always stood so tall and proud, put on that air of being the one in charge, but really he was a family guy and a laugh to be around when they weren't in the office or on a case.

He pursed his lips, "just keep your knickers on."

"What if them coming off is what it'll take for this person to send her a letter of her own?" Mason, an Auror sitting in front of Ginny and Chris spoke up, cracking up a bit.

"Yeah, what if my vagina is all it'll take to solve this?" Ginny piled on, sounding like it was an innocent question. "What if my vagina really wants to do her part to help out. We couldn't possibly deny her the chance."

"Your vagina is a separate entity, is it?" Robards cracked and quirked an eyebrow.

"Depends on how much I've had to drink," Ginny shrugged as the room chuckled.

"No drinking on the job," Robards said sternly.

Ginny looked down at her crotch, "sorry. Hey, don't blame me, he's the one cock-blocking." The whole room cracked up then at the conversation she had with her vagina. Ginny looked back up at her boss. "She's angry, but she's not pissed."

He was properly grinning with laughter now. "Alright, everyone calm down," he collected the room again. "Weasley, you'll be stationed with Potter. Check his mail, make sure to record the names of any other women that show up at his place-"

"Or men," Chris added.

"Or men," Robards nodded. "We can't make any assumptions here. We've got a few of the original letters to check over for any contaminants or telling details we missed. Mason, Doherty, I'll get the two of you to work with the lab and tail him. Everyone will be briefed daily and for fuck's sake, don't leak any of this to the press. Last thing we want is this person getting a big head about it.

"Weasley, you stay behind for further instruction. Mason, Doherty, come and get the evidence, the rest of you, back to work," Robards dismissed them.

"You good with this?" Robards asked Ginny seriously once everyone else had left the room.

"Yeah," she shrugged. "Just hope his place is nice."

"I need you on proper Auror behavior with this," he warned. "There hasn't been that much going on for us and I've a feeling protection details like this one are all that'll be funding our department for a while. Not a bad thing, but if shit hits the fan again like it did a few years ago then I'll need people properly trained."

She raised her hand, "I solemnly swear to be a cold fish."

They all joked around in the office but when they were out on the job they all knew to be nothing short of imposing. Ginny fully expected to be belittled by Potter and whoever the representative from his team would be that were going to be greeting them.

"When are they expecting us?"

Robards checked his watch. "Thirty minutes."

Ginny nodded. "Auror robes, or no?"

"It isn't technically undercover but we don't need to be broadcasting his protection detail either. No to the uniform, make sure you're still in something that will conceal your wand and allow for movement. Go pack a bag and meet me back here in twenty," he dismissed.

Twenty-five minutes later they were being let into a swanky looking building in Edinburgh by a door man that nodded at Robards and gave Ginny a single looking over. He seemed stoic and accommodating, probably had the post for several years and knew not to ogle the women coming and going. He might have remembered just how many women Potter had brought back to his place though and could tell them if their count was off.

"Anyone questioned him about people hanging around when Potter comes back here?"

"I don't know that Potter uses the door very often but it is worth a check," Robards told her.

"Is this a Muggle building? Does he use his Floo?"

"Apparates to the roof more often than not. This is a mixed building. Top floors are designated for our folk."

"Do we know if the doorman is a Muggle?"

"He is."

Ginny nodded. She'd done a few training courses learning how the Bobbies dealt with investigations but she'd need to review her notes to recall specific terminology and bits about their recording devices. Her dad had been a help and a hinderance with those courses. He'd been so interested but kept getting her mixed up with his false 'facts' and mispronunciations.

If they had recording video devices then she could review them herself.

They took the lift up to the fifth floor of the seven-floor building and Robards led to door 504. It was a corner flat and from the distance between it and the other doors she could tell it was going to be a large one.

The door opened a moment later and it was decidedly not Potter that opened it. It was a heavy-set man with a greying beard, brown hair and glasses. "Right on time," he said to Robards. "Is this another one of them? My goodness, he does get around, doesn't he?" The exasperation behind the man's voice told her how much of an inconvenience he found Potter's antics to be.

"This is Auror Weasley," Robards told the man levelly. "Weasley, this is Eric Bouchard, he is the team legal counsel."

Ginny made sure to keep her expression set in one of non-tolerance and gave the man a single nod.

Mr. Bouchard's face reddened slightly at his assumption and muttered an apology before leading them through to the main room.

It was a large and open space that Potter had. There were windows covering two walls that lit up the entirety of the open sitting area and kitchen. Three doors were along the stretch of wall, all closed, and she could hear the shower running.

Nice to see how much Potter cared about what was going on that he didn't bother to be present for the Head Auror showing up at his place.

Robards started briefing Bouchard and Ginny helped herself in scoping out the flat. She went to the door that was beside the one that was obviously the bathroom and it led to a den. A large den that had a cot set up in it, presumably meant for her to stay in. She cast a detection spell and got nothing, but she did recognize a Muggle recording device that had video feed, and it ran on battery and was pointed at the cot.

She removed the wireless device and went back to the main room to place it on the coffee table between the two men that were now seated, saying nothing else before continuing her search of the flat. Neither of the men said anything, making her draw the conclusion that they didn't know what the item was she'd relocated.

In the next room she opened the door to find a massive master bedroom with a walk-in closet at the far end and a King-sized bed, with a woman tangled up in the sheets that had yet to wake properly.

Ginny sighed internally. They needed to post a public service announcement to Potter's head if they wanted to keep any more women out of St. Mungos that dared to want to wrap their legs around him.

Ginny went over to the bed and yanked the pillow out from under the woman's head. She squeaked in surprise and protest.

"Who are you?" the brunette asked bleary eyed and clutching the sheet to her chest to try and preserve some modesty.

"Your alarm clock. You've over-slept. Name and occupation?" Ginny demanded.

"Er, Gisele Marchbanks," she said in her still sleep confused state. "I'm, um, I'm not…" she gave a cough and her face turned beet red. "I'm a house-wife." Then she started tearing up. "Don't tell my husband, please! He's just gone so much of the time, and it was Harry Potter! I mean."

Ginny held up her hand, not caring to hear any more of the sob story of how this woman came to drop her knickers. "Get dressed and leave. Don't open any letters or packages from unknown senders. If you wind up in St. Mungos in the next week this event should be the first one you mention to them."

Gisele's eyes went wide. "Why would I end up in St. Mungos?"

Ginny didn't answer her, she just continued her search of the room for any more of the video devices. There weren't any that she could see. It was good to know he didn't get his rocks off by filming his conquests.

Gisele quickly pulled on her frock from the night before and rushed out of the room, giving another squeak of surprise at the two unknown men in the sitting room. Ginny heard Bouchard say something about a non-disclosure agreement before Ginny went to inspect the walk-in closet, pushing clothes out of the way and checking in the drawers.

A third man's voice said something in the other room and there came the sound of a door closing. A moment later there were footsteps leading up to the walk-in and Harry Potter himself came in, not at all paying attention to his surroundings, thus he did not notice her standing there in the corner of the space. Ginny had turned to rest her back against the drawers, her arms crossed, while he came in and went to the closest rack of clothing, picking out a shirt and pulling it off the hanger, then letting his towel drop to the floor.

For a moment she got to admire him in his full glory; it was a very nice picture. Tight abs, a chiseled arse, a happy trail from his navel down to a groomed thatch of hair and his currently flaccid dick. He was uncut, she noticed. His form wasn't overly buff and defined as Chris but Ginny preferred her men with a little less build like the specimen before her.

She allowed herself a smirk before wiping it off her face and clearing her throat.

Potter gave a startled jump and lowered his shirt to cover himself.

"Bit late for that," she deadpanned.

"Who are you? You aren't who…" he turned back to look at his bed as though he was trying to remember exactly what the woman he had bedded last night looked like.

"Protection detail," Ginny told him, then turned around and kept searching through his drawers.

"Hey! You can't just be in here going through my things," he protested.

"According to your man Bouchard out there, I can," she told him and tossed him a pair of boxers then continued with her search.

"You are my protection detail?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yep. Lucky us." He owned an excessive amount of clothes for a man. Dress shirts in every style and color, trousers and jeans all hung up nicely. He even seemed to have a months supply of boxers and socks. Why on earth would anyone need that many clothes? Did he only shop for them once every five years when they all wore out? Or only have a laundry service once a month, that was another plausible reason.

He was quiet behind her while she finished checking all his drawers and did another detection spell.

"I do those myself, you know," he commented dryly.

"You do a lot of things. And one of those things might be who has targeted you and could possibly have placed another listening charm." She turned to him then, he was still only clad in his boxers and was currently leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed. "Was it you who set up the video camera in the den? Aimed at the cot?"

He had the decency to look surprised and sheepish about that.

"You set that up this morning, didn't you?" she continued. "It still had plenty of battery life so it must have been done recently."

"Perhaps I was testing you," he defended nervously.

"Wanted to try and make an embarrassment of whoever it was sent to protect you?"

"I don't need protection," he cut in.

"No. Just the women you've been fucking, that's who've really been targeted. Do you find it amusing just how much it has escalated in such a short time? Out of the twenty-three women we're aware of you bedding in the last few months, eleven of them have been targeted. I'm sure Mrs. Marchbanks is next."

"Who?"

"The woman I rousted from your bed a minute ago." She was managing to say this as expressionless as possible, the urge to roll her eyes and scoff was very strong though.

He looked back at his bed and the over to her again. "I didn't know she was married."

"I doubt you know her eye color either," Ginny deadpanned. "I sent her on her way with a warning and your man Bouchard out there had her sign an NDA."

He looked her over calculating then and took a step closer to her. "You've got rather lovely eyes," he told her in a charming voice. "Your freckles look lovely as well. The shine in your hair, it reminds me of photos of my mother." He sounded fondly reminiscent then.

Ginny quirked an eyebrow at him. "Is this the way you operate? Comparing women to your mother? There are other ways to go about dealing with your mommy issues."

"That's disgusting," he protested and took a step back. "Why would you suggest such a thing?"

"Asks the man trying to put the moves on me by comparing me to his mother. Thought you'd be more 'who's your daddy' type."

This right here is why you don't want to meet your hero's. Ginny'd had the opportunity to meet Gwenog Jones once and passed on it, she'd be devastated if she found out Gwenog Jones was a bitch. Illusions were too easily shattered.

That was the closet and bedroom dealt with. While Potter stood there with his mouth open, Ginny went around him and headed straight for the kitchen.

"Anything interesting in there?" Robards asked.

Desperately, desperately, she wanted to quip back about how Potter was uncircumcised. That wasn't professional though. "Nothing. No charms or Muggle recording devices. Just Mrs. Marchbanks."

"And Harry?" asked Bouchard. "He wasn't too… rude, or vulgar?"

Ginny looked at the man then, then to Potter who had just walked into the room, hastily dressed, his face locked in an unamused brooding expression. "Nothing I can't handle."

As she searched the rest of the flat, Potter sat down in an armchair opposite Bouchard and Robards while they discussed how this was all going to work, with Ginny being there 24/7 in the flat and the other Aurors that would be tailing him and checking in with all his past lovers from the list he'd provided.

Ginny was impressed he'd managed to remember all their first and last names. Those could have easily come from Bouchard as well though, she'd have to look into that.

Her final sweep of the flat revealed that he preferred the Muggle method of cooking to the magic way and that he had a single snack cupboard full of crisps and sweets, the rest of it was healthy food that required preparation to make a meal of. It looked like Potter was quite the chef.

She'd left an ear open to hear the conversation that was coming from the other side of the kitchen island where the men sat and heard that she'd be allowed to help herself to the food and supplies around the flat so long as what was used was replaced and that he didn't expect her to make a mess of the flat while she was occupying it. The den would be her private area.

Well, it would now that she removed the camera.

She'd received a copy of his work and game schedule along with a list of all the people that had access to his flat and Floo, that was a short list. There would be a limited amount of investigation she could do from this location, so combined with Potter's schedule it seemed there would be quite a bit of downtime.

This could be the most relaxed case she'd ever get. He had a few books on his bookshelf she wouldn't mind reading over.

A few minutes later and Robards had left through the front door with a nod at her, and Bouchard had left through the Floo after having a private word with Potter. Ginny did her best to read Bouchard's lips and picked up on the words 'don't', 'fuck' and 'reputation'.

With the flat searched and Robards and Bouchard gone, she was now left with simply the protection detail. She'd done it before but it had involved standing outside a door and not moving, this was a bit different.

Potter gave her a sideways glance and started pulling out food to make his breakfast in the kitchen, Ginny took a seat at the counter on the opposite side from him, watching as he prepared the food.

"Have you never seen anyone make an omelet before?" Potter scoffed at her.

"Not without use of magic," she told him honestly. Her mum had taught her the spells for getting vegetables to slice themselves and get the pan frying. His way took so much longer and required accuracy.

"So, you're just going to sit there and watch me for a month straight?"

"Among other things."

He gave her a smirk then. "And what might those other things involve?"

He really could turn it on and off that easily? "Have you ever thought of getting yourself a girlfriend?" she asked him straight. "You'd likely get laid more often that way. I've even heard that the more serious the relationship the kinkier the sex."

"Perhaps I simply believe in test driving a car before I buy it," he bit back.

She felt like he was trying to challenge her with the Muggle terms, but she was versed in it. "Then perhaps you might make sure the car is available for test-driving before stealing some other mans… Hummer," she countered.

He opened his mouth as though he'd had a retort ready for her, apparently she'd taken him by surprise though because there was a crack in his demeanor and he fought back a laugh.

"How well do you know your neighbors?" Ginny asked, switching the subject.

He gave a shrug. "I've bumped into them from time to time. They're all a bit older and from old money, if you know what I mean."

"Purebloods then," she translated.

"Yeah," he confirmed, unconcerned.

She'd get their names and relationship status' later. "Any of the women done anything that might have come across as motherly, or grandmotherly?" Ginny summoned her notepad and pen from her bag and started in on her to-do list.

"You think this could be, like, them wanting to protect me from loose women?" he gave her a puzzled look.

"Can't rule anything out yet. Can I take that as a 'no'?"

He shook his head.

"Right. What about the main entrance? The Muggle entrance. Do you ever use it?"

"I did when I first moved in, haven't since. I have deliveries that come here every now and again for take-away."

She leaned in curiously, "the doorman, what's his deal? He would notice if you never used the door. Same for the other tenants on this floor and the two above. Yet you all still get deliveries and have to call down to allow them in, don't you?"

"He has a slight Confundus Charm on him. He and the others don't think twice about it."

As he continued making breakfast she asked him about the women that had been targeted and where he'd met them, who he'd been with, dates, locations, etc. He remembered each night and woman so well that Ginny wondered if he'd been lying. She didn't understand why he would bother remembering his one-night stands so well if that was all they were to be, yet he remembered. He remembered what each woman was named, what she looked like, where they met. Everything he was telling her corresponded with what each of the women they had interviewed had told them.

He'd made breakfast for her as well through all this. It had smelled really good and her chocolate croissant that she'd eaten for her actual breakfast felt like it was ages ago. He was as good a chef as she'd assumed from looking at his cupboards too. The cheese he'd shaved on top of the omelet must have been smoked because it was delicious.

He put the dish in the sink once he was done. "Right, well I have to get to training and you have to continue to snoop through my flat I guess. Tell me, will the detail assigned to me while I'm not at my flat look like bodyguards, or will they simply be tailing me?" There was a nice level of distain in his tone.

"You shouldn't even notice them," she dismissed and went to the sink with her own dish, then started in on the cleanup of the kitchen.

And that was it for the conversation between them.

Days passed with the two of them simply moving around each other. Ginny would get daily reports from where they were in the investigation but they still had no suspects even after talking with each of the women. None of them reported anyone with a similar description hanging around they and Potter where they met. None of them seemed all that bothered by the fact that they didn't hear from Potter again after their night of passion. Ginny gathered he'd been something to brag about to their friends and nothing more. Or maybe Potter had just made it clear to them that it was a one-night only thing.

Ginny and he didn't talk to each other much.

His flirting thing he'd done with her on her first day there, it too might have been some kind of test of his because he didn't do it anymore. He would simply come home, sometimes he'd make extra food and leave it for her, sometimes she'd make extra tea and leave it for him, but they simply moved around each other in the flat.

That was, until one night; Ginny had been sitting at the end of his sofa reading one of the novels she'd brought with her and Harry was in the kitchen area making something that required boiling a pot of water on the stove. Then the Floo burst to life before her and she had her wand drawn on the surprise guest and they froze where they were on the hearth.

"Let him go," Potter demanded. "That's my Godfather and he's allowed to be here."

Ginny shot Potter a glare for barking an order at her like she was his dog. She walked over to the newcomer and recognized Sirius Black. She'd read over his folder. He'd been a handsome man in his twenties, which was how old he'd been in the photo they had from his arrest over his flying motorbike. He'd aged well too; he looked dapper and suave. He'd been the one to raise Potter after his parents had passed away so it was no surprise that Potter acted the way he did if her estimation of Black's character was correct.

Ginny ran her detection spell and it came back clean, then she unfroze him.

Black shook himself a bit once he was freed. "Harry, you didn't tell me your personal bodyguard was such a," he gave her a looking over, "spirited individual." He held out his hand as an offer of friendship. "Sirius Black, at your service. I believe Ginny Weasley was the name I was given?"

Ginny accepted his hand and they shook once.

"I would have been able to guess your family by the hair alone. Should have known you'd be lively from Surname. We are distant cousins actually," he told her jovially.

"My grandmother was your aunt," Ginny nodded. "Congratulations for getting disowned by your parents when you were in your teens, I've heard nothing but awful stories about them."

"Why thank you," he grinned and gave her a bow. "One of my most proud accomplishments, besides raising Harry here."

Ginny liked his energy. If she wasn't on the job right now she would have liked to sit down and have a good chat with him over a glass of whiskey. Instead, she kept her amusement in check and glanced over at Harry who also didn't look amused at his Godfathers behavior.

"You'll have to forgive him for being a miserable sod. I tried to socialize him as much as I could but we travelled around too much. He makes a good first impression, it's the follow through he needs to work on," Sirius teased and cast Potter a wink.

"You two are related then?" Potter asked at a volume louder than necessary, in an obvious attempt to get them to change the subject.

"She's probably related to most of Wizarding Britain. The Weasley's are a prolific family," Sirius told him as he made his way over to the kitchen and found the cupboard with the spirits in it. "What are we having tonight?" he asked, looking into the dish on the stove. "Oh good. Are you doing a baked pasta? Those are always fantastic," he told her over his shoulder.

Potter didn't answer him though, just continued chopping up his fixings.

"I'm here nearly ever Friday for dinner, did he tell you?" Sirius asked her while he poured himself a healthy amount of scotch.

"We haven't done much talking," Ginny told him.

"Oh really?" he asked, his tone heavy with insinuation.

"Sirius," Potter said his name in a pained and warning voice.

Sirius rolled his eyes and came over to sit down on the opposite side of the couch from her. "And just how is it that a little thing like you is supposed to protect Harry here?"

"I did manage to stop you quick enough when you came through the Floo," she told him.

"Well, that's me. Say it was the evil villain that's after him. And let's pretend they are some larger than average man and your wand is elsewhere?"

"Are you asking me to role play with you?" she quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, lets," he said excitedly and took a large sip of his scotch before getting up to stand in front of the fireplace. "Okay, so, leave your wand on the table there and pretend you can't see it. Then I come bursting through the Floo."

Now she was trying not to chuckle. He seemed very worked up and into this idea. He was shaking his arms out like he was trying to get into character. "Okay. I'm big, I'm strong, I'm completely obsessed with making Harry my bitch or whatever."

"Sirius!" Potter protested again from the kitchen.

Sirius gave him a dismissive wave and kept his focus on her. "Now then, how would you take me down?"

He was about three feet away from her. She placed her wand beside her on the couch gently, then turned to him calmly and assessed him.

"Oh now, you've got to be quicker than that. What if- eep!"

Ginny had slipped down to the floor and tucked one of her feet between his, hooking her foot on the back of his boot and pulling her knee up as hard as she could, pulling his ankle forward as she did. It threw him off balance and he fell backwards. She then grabbed one of his hands, holding it in a wrist lock, and got his own wand out of its holster to point in his face.

"Anything else you'd like to try?" she asked levelly. Inside she was feeling so proud of herself for pulling that off, she'd only ever tried it with Chris before, but he'd managed to flip her over and take the dominating position. Not something Sirius was looking capable of.

"Fuck! Ow, ow, ow. Okay, mercy. Now let go," he was swatting at her hand that held his other in a painful position.

She released him and went back to the couch to pick up her novel, noticing that Potter was trying not to laugh at his Godfather. He also looked rather impressed with how she'd taken him down. Sirius got up and held his injured hand delicately before taking his seat again and downing more of his scotch.

"Guess I need to mind my tongue when I'm around you. Mind if I call you the Black Widow?"

"Are you insinuating I bite the heads off of the men I shag?" Ginny asked.

"No, just that you're a one-woman army. How long are you here for again?"

"Just over three more weeks."

"Phew, then I hope for Harry's sake you don't bit the heads off the men you shag," he commented and sat back on the couch, examining his wrist and moving it this way and that.

Ginny locked eyes with Potter at that comment. They barely acknowledged each other since her first few hours here, she doubted they would have trouble keeping their hands off one another. He may have been hot, and she could understand the women he'd bedded wanting to spend one night with him. She'd had a few one-night stands herself over the last few years but now she was holding out for something that could potentially lead to something more.

Ginny couldn't get a read on his expression and what it meant. A moment later he was back to making dinner for himself and his Godfather.

Ginny was pleased that she had yet to run into another woman in the flat so far.

"What do you make of the attacks on the women your Godson has shagged?" Ginny asked Sirius.

"Oh, probably the same that you and your lot have come up with. Some bird that's jealous and wants Harry for themselves. Likely stalking him and hoping he notices them, then getting some kind of revenge on the ones he does take a shine to."

Sirius sounded rather dismissive of this.

She was desperate to ask what his thoughts were on the number of women that he'd bedded over the last few months. See if maybe that was a learned behavior. It would be seen as a comment on Potter's propriety though and it had nothing to do with solving the case.

"Have you ever been with him when he was out and noticed someone watching him or perhaps the same person at different locations?"

"Oh, I was there a few times that he picked up women but it's been years since we've been out together and he's done that, hasn't it?" he asked Potter over his shoulder.

"Must you ask him this?" Potter asked her.

"Well, I'm obviously not here solely for the pleasure of your company, now am I?" Ginny bit back at him then turned her focus back to Sirius. "So you and he don't go out often?" she asked.

"Nah, Harry's a home body. I know he's got a list of lovers that is a mile long, but he'd rather just stay home. It's all that teams influence that he go out, and he is a sloppy bitch when he's drunk. Only way to loosen him up."

This was new information. "Where you intoxicated every time you brought a woman back here?" she asked Potter.

"Yeah," he admitted, not meeting her eye.

"Well, then how do you remember so many details about the women?"

"I would ask them in the morning," he stated as though it was obvious.

She frowned as she thought that over. Ginny opened her mouth to ask about who else that he did know was usually with him on the nights he brought a witch home, but there was a tapping at the window. An owl was flapping its wings outside. Ginny let him in and carefully untied the note attached to his leg. Potter came around the island to give the owl a treat before letting it hop onto his arm and he carried it back to the window.

Ginny ran a few spells over the letter before opening it and seeing it was from Robards.

"There have been two more women from your list that have been victimized. One is in St. Mungos recovering from smoke inhalation after breathing in too much Peruvian Darkness Powder. The other is healing up at home after she was discovered having spent four days reading the same letter over and over again because it was cursed. She'd been unable to do anything else."

"Fuck," Sirius commented.

That pretty much summed up the sentiment from all of them.

()()()

By the end of her second week there she was questioning how much her presence was really accomplishing besides obviously cock-blocking Potter.

He seemed to have changed his routine because of her being at his flat. There was no way he could have bedded as many woman as he had when he was home by six in the evening every night but game night. He hadn't gone out with his mates for drinks or even to a restaurant for dinner since she'd been there, and he seemed completely content with it.

Being stuck in his flat all the time was making her antsy too. She needed fresh air and to move. Ginny was going mad being in his place all day by herself and then when he'd come home he would barely grunt at her.

Honestly, she had been looking forward to Sirius coming back over for dinner on Friday just for a change of scenery.

Unfortunately, it was now Saturday and Potter had decided to go to Sirius' 'for a change' as he'd told her quickly last night.

It seemed he'd either spent the night at his Godfathers or found some woman while he was out to put another notch in his belt with.

Either way, her job was to be protecting his flat, so that's where she had to stay. She'd sent a few owls back and forth to her parents and to Chris for something to do. None of the Aurors that were out doing legwork had found anything to report back about for a few days. The women that had been attacked were all better now as well.

Right now she was in the living area with a yoga mat rolled out attempting to keep herself physically occupied when the front door opened and she grabbed her wand, petrifying Potter before she looked to see who it was. She merely gave him a once over before releasing her spell.

"Good morning to you too," he said wryly. He had the disheveled look of someone who'd either gotten very drunk or had an amorous shag session.

She lowered her wand when she heard the click of the front door being locked again and went right back to doing her poses. "Another name to add to our list of targets?" she asked.

"No," he told her through clenched teeth and made his way to the kitchen.

Ginny kept going through her routine while she heard him cursing under his breath and moving things around in the cupboards, then the sound of pouring water. With her eyes closed she heard him moving around the flat and finally taking up a seat in his armchair and remaining silent.

He didn't move or say a word as she finished up and then opened her eyes again to find he'd been staring at her the entire time with this intense look on his face.

"There wasn't room to do this in the den," she defended, not entirely knowing what his look was about but figuring it had something to do with her treating his personal space as her own.

"Are you always like this?" he asked.

Her brow furrowed at the question. "Like what?"

"Silent. Focused. Auror-Mc-Cop-Face," he listed off.

"No. But this is my job that I'm currently performing. I know it's interfering with your life and I'm questioning whether my being here is even important at this point. I'm still a representative of the Aurors and have been ordered by my Department Head to behave as such."

Potter looked very tired, he was possibly suffering from a hang-over considering the amount Sirius seemed to like to drink. He was still staring at her, studying her. She noticed as his eyes travelled from her own Southward. "You could relax a bit, you know. There's no one else around and you've already checked for listening devices."

Him saying this while he was staring at her tits did not give her the warm and fuzzies.

"I will not be fucking you, if that's what you're getting at," she deadpanned.

His eyes shot back up to hers, and amazingly, a blush coming to his cheeks. "That's not what… I just meant that you don't have to be so… rigid… all the time." He gave a sigh and ran a hand over his face, rubbing his forehead with his palm and then taking a sip from his mug. "Look, I was chatting with Sirius last night and he was telling me what he knows about your family. I guess he's met a few of your brothers and they're all a laugh. That has me believing that you probably have the capacity to be a laugh as well, I just haven't seen it. So, all I'm saying is, well, relax. I guess."

She raised a single eyebrow at him slowly. "I need to relax? I think you can lump both of us in there. If Sirius was the one to raise you then I would expect you are capable of behaving somewhat like him. Instead, you walk around here in a broody cloud of gloom. And you know that I'm not stopping you from going out with your mate's and bringing some bird back here to shag for the night-"

He gave a scoff at that. "Yeah right. How am I supposed to just go out and pick someone up knowing that they could potentially get hurt? How fair is that? Plus, there is the problem of my bringing them back just to find out that I've already got a woman in my flat that's rather 'shaggable', as Sirius put it."

"Ew," Ginny screwed up her face in disgust. "He's a good-looking bloke, one of the lucky bastards that just gets more dapper with age, but he's a bit old for me."

"He meant for me," Potter rolled his eyes, then blushed again like he hadn't meant for that to slip out.

She looked him over carefully again, trying to find the hidden words behind what he'd just said. "He's bugging you about settling down a bit, isn't he?" she inferred, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.

Potter rolled his eyes and ran another hand over his face. "He said that while he's proud he'd managed to turn me into a Casanova of sorts, at least Casanova claimed to be looking for someone permanent. He wondered when there would be a woman worthy of a follow-up seeing as I haven't yet found one."

That had been something she'd noticed as well. Every statement she'd seen from his bedmates said it had been a one-time thing. And it seemed Potter was on a rant.

"What he doesn't realize is that I don't mean to wind up in bed with them. My mates just get me drunk and the next thing I know I've got a woman on my arm and figure, what the hell, you know? Even with Marchbanks there; I didn't mean for that to happen."

Ginny did know. Not on the level that he did, but she'd been in a 'what the hell/why not' situation a few times.

"And yeah, sometimes I don't know their names until the morning either. Pretty sure my asking them that when they wake up followed by getting them to sign an NDA on the way out the door seals it up nice and pretty that they won't be coming around for seconds as well."

"Yet, you do remember all of their names and where you met them pretty well," Ginny pointed out. Even if he did find it out the morning after, he was thoughtful enough to retain the information.

"Oh. Erm, well. About that. I may have a list," he admitted into his mug.

This was new information. "You've a list?" she exclaimed. "An actual list of names that you have of women you've shagged, and with all that information you'd given us?"

He didn't seem to think this was an important tidbit of information. "Well. Yes."

"Where do you keep it? I didn't see any list laying around."

"I wouldn't keep it just laying around," he scoffed. "I have it hidden."

"Where?" she demanded.

He was back to scowling at her now and got up from his chair, heading into his bedroom. She jumped to her feet to follow him and watched as he lifted up the mattress on the other side of his bed and removed a small notebook. He then tossed in across the mattress to her.

Ginny flipped through it. The names and dates started a few years back, those dates getting progressively closer together until it looked like he'd gone full Lothario at the pubs around six months ago.

"A sixty-six?!" she'd asked, astounded at how many women were recorded.

He shook his head, looking a bit ashamed at how high that number had gone. "And that's nothing on some of the guys on my team. Even the ones with girlfriends. At least I never cheated on anyone."

"Well, from what you've just told me there was never a someone to cheat on, was there?" she said distractedly as she looked over the names and one caught her eye, one of her old dorm mates. Ginny cringed at the sight of Romilda Vane being on the list. "Urgh, I hate her, she's such a bitch. She does have nice tits though so I guess if all you're looking for is a fuck, I can't fault you for that. Hope you gagged her at least though; annoying giggler that one." This new source of information was making her forget to check her behavior.

She failed to see the look of shock on Potters face from her comment.

"I know this is a stupid question, but any chance one of these recent women might have found this under the mattress while you were showering or something?"

All in all there weren't too many names that she recognized in the notebook.

He shook his head. "I don't think so. What would they be doing searching between the mattress and box spring for? Pretty sure I'm the only one that lifts it up high enough."

Ginny looked at the bed, and the sheets on the bed, and the pillow covers. They were incredibly rumpled. The last time she'd been in here they looked freshly laundered. Her brow furrowing, she went to his walk-in closet then and pulled open his top drawer. There were half the number of pants in there than there were last time.

"What are you doing?" Potter asked, following right behind her.

She rounded on him. "You've a laundering service!" She'd wondered that when she first checked his room but had never followed up with the question about it because he'd walked in naked. She'd seen him cleaning up the kitchen and tidying around the flat regularly, so it didn't occur to her again.

"Yeah. Once a ... month." It was dawning on him as well. "Oh fuck," his eyes went wide at the realization.

"They come in and do the sheets?" she asked.

"They do." It was written all over his face that he was 100% convinced that will have been the only way someone could have found out about the women.

None of the stories of him meeting the women had an overlapping description of spectators, none of them were linked through work or shared friends, there hadn't been any suspicious persons stalking around his flat, there hadn't even been any gossip rags that printed pictures of him and any of the women.

"Is it a service? An individual? The same person every time?" she asked him.

"I… it's a service… I don't know if it's the same person every time or not," he shook his head.

"Alright. Give me the name of the service and we'll check into it."

An hour later and Ginny was still kicking herself. She'd wondered that in her first ten minutes in his flat. It wasn't like he would have shared his personal list of conquests with one of them when they were there or shown anyone else where he hid it. Being good at her job usually was all about asking the right questions, and she hadn't that day.

In the last hour Potter had tracked down the information for the cleaning service, she'd gotten that to Robards and he and the other Aurors on the case were now over at 'The We'll Do It- Magical Maid Service', a name Ginny thought could carry a double entendre. She and Potter were waiting to hear back from them, she was doing her best not to fidget as they waited. Potter was not being successful in reigning in his fidgeting. He kept moving around the room and adjusting things and tidying up like some manic OCD.

"Will you sit down or something?" Ginny finally asked him. "Maybe go take a shower or make some food. Anything to stop you flitting around like that."

"I'll remind you that this is my flat and you are the guest," he rounded.

"Not by choice! I'm here because I'm the right age and gender and currently unattached. I was literally the only option Robards could find plausible," she bit back in annoyance. She too was so impatient and worked up that she'd failed to keep up with her professional demeanor.

"They were using you as bait?" He'd been adjusting things on the mantle over the fireplace for the second time in thirty minutes and stared at her, completely baffled.

"Yes, you idiot."

"What, so if it had been someone snooping from a rooftop across the way and they saw you here, they were supposed to think that we were shagging?"

"Yeah," she stated plainly.

"How in the fuck is that supposed to be believable when you've been sleeping in the den and we haven't been talking to each other, almost at all, since you got here?"

Ginny could do no more than blink at him as she thought that one over. And now that he'd mentioned it, she too saw the flaw in that plan. They'd been merely courteous to each other, were essentially just existing in the same space. If they had wanted to sell the lie she should have been letting her guard down a bit, perhaps touching him, following him into his bedroom on occasion.

"It doesn't seem to have mattered. All surveillance done around here, rooftops adjacent included, turned up no one," she dismissed, not wanting to own up to the fact that the plan had not been thought out.

"What if they were wearing an invisibility cloak?" he argued.

"A Homenum Revelio would still discover someone there, regardless of whether they had an invisibility cloak," Ginny assured him.

He said no more before storming off to his room. Ginny thought that meant he'd conceded, but then she heard him walk back into the room a moment later. She heard it, but she couldn't see him. She rolled her eyes thinking 'of course he has one' and then waved her wand and cast the spell, which came back showing no one else was in the room.

Again, she cast the spell with the same result.

'How in the fuck,' she wondered, completely baffled. They'd covered this in basic training, Invisibility Cloaks did not hide someone from that detection spell. Nothing was supposed to be able to hide someone from that spell.

She was completely silent as she stared at the result and could feel his presence in the room with her. She closed her eyes and listened hard so she knew where in the room he was and knew he was right beside her, maybe a foot away. Reaching out her hand it came in contact with something as smooth as silk and so light it felt like water running through her fingers.

Clasping onto it she pulled and it revealed him standing there, yet she was staring down at the beautiful cloak in her hand.

"Where did you get this?" she asked.

"Family heirloom. And it got past your detection spell, didn't it?"

He was being cocky, and she glared at him for it, then turned her attention back on the cloak. "Amazing." Then she looked up at him again. "You're right. There is a chance that we missed her, this proves it," she held up the cloak. "Hopefully we'll know for sure soon enough."

"And if we don't?" he asked.

"Then I guess it makes sense for me to adjust my behavior." Ginny looked up at him again for a moment before she stepped forward and ran the back of her hand down his cheek, feeling a bit of his day-old stubble against her skin. "Babe," she purred with a teasing wink. She gave him his cloak back and went to document their discussion in her notes that she kept in the den.

She'd just added the last of her information to her folder when there was the sound of a few more men in the flat. Coming back out into the main area she saw Robards and Chris.

"What's the news?" she asked.

"She'd found out we were coming before we got there. Our call to check in with their admin reached her ears and she's run off, so it's looking like this lead is it," Robards told her.

"Her name is Katrina MacGregor," Chris told she and Potter.

"The name isn't familiar," Ginny shook her head.

"Probably wouldn't be. She's a Squib, but only just. Got some magic in her, but not enough to get into Hogwarts," Robards said. "We've got others reaching out to her friends and family, but we think she'll either go into hiding or go all out now."

Those were the two main options people feel they have when they've been cornered.

"What does that mean?" Potter asked.

"If it were you, would you hide or decide there was nothing to lose by throwing yourself at your object of obsession?" Ginny asked him. "No one ever turns themselves in, that's only something you see in stories," she told him before he could say it himself. It was an overwhelming theme in the books he had on his bookshelf.

Potter stared at her then, calculating over what to say next. "I guess that means you're staying for a bit longer then." He didn't look too upset by that.

"It shouldn't be any longer than originally agree upon," Robards assured him. "If we haven't caught her or heard anything about her by a week out then we will be making the call that she went underground. We'll add some more warding to your flat then. Right now though, it would make more sense… not to."

He said those last two words to Ginny and she understood. They were more likely to trap Katrina this way. She nodded her consent.

Robards left through the Floo before Chris, who pulled her aside.

"Dish, you and him?" he asked her in a whisper.

"Fuck off," she rolled her eyes at him.

"Hey, I know you let down your cooch before you took on the case, but you've got needs and he is still one fine piece of ass." He waggled his eyebrows at her, making her laugh loudly.

"Get out of here," she grinned and pushed him towards the fireplace.

"So that's what you look like when you properly smile," Potter commented when they were alone again.

That made the smile slip off her face a bit. "It isn't like I've seen yours either," she retorted.

His jaw clenched at that and he looked over at the fireplace, nodding his head towards it. "You and he? Are you?"

Ginny held up her hand to stop him there. "No. He's my sparring partner and happily engaged in what I believe is a monogamous relationship with someone." She'd never had confirmation that Chris and David were exclusive, she had the inkling that they might be open to a third in their bed if both agreed and were present, like Chris had mentioned of wanting to be with Potter here.

"This does leave us with the question of rearranging our behavior here and what you are open to," Ginny told him.

That looked to have made him take a mental step back, "for example?"

She stepped towards him and put her hands on his chest and felt him stiffen at her touch. "Such as," she ran her hands up to go around his neck and leveraged herself up on her toes to bring her lips to his ear, "how that's a mighty big bed you have. And I've only got that teeny tiny cot." She lowered herself back to stare up at him, trying to ignore how his pupils had dilated already from her teasing. "It seems only fair that you share. You know, to sell it."

With that she walked around him and went to the kitchen to prepare herself some semblance of lunch. It wasn't even noon and yet she felt like she'd had a full day already. They had a suspect now, the suspect was on the run, but they had the name and that was huge.

And she could do nothing to help but stay here and keep playing babysitter.

"You seriously want to share my bed tonight?" he asked her, coming to sit at the stool on the opposite side of the kitchen island.

"The next few nights," she corrected. "If the point of my being here was to make it seem like you were shagging me then my sleeping in the den wouldn't really be convincing. Nor the fact that we don't talk to each other. So how about this; I make us some lunch and you tell me a story, any story."

"A story," he repeated.

"Yes. Or I suppose I could tell you one." She pulled out the supplies for making a nice turkey club sandwich and laid it all out on the counter. "Once upon a time," she began.

"No, no," he held up a hand to stop her. "I'll go first. I really don't care for fairy tales. They're all crap."

"You think they're all crap?" she asked in surprise.

"The Muggle one's, yeah. They're all supposed to paint a picture of what not to do, but they all have some evil external force making them do something. I guess it's supposed to symbolize our inner demons or something, but then why have the whole 'locked up princess' and 'prince charming' business?" He shook his head. "Real life examples would be so much better, give kids something to strive for rather than every little girl hoping she'll find some poor schmuck that'll put her up on some pedestal. They should be told the story of some real person who defied all odds and conquered what they set out to do. Like a kid with one arm that went on to be the best Ju-Jitsu fighter at a competition, or a kid who grew up with nothing and went on to become a major success. Real life examples and real-life heroes. That would help kids think about what they wanted their own future to look like and motivate them to get there."

Ginny stared at him in shock. That was probably the most he'd said to her this entire time she'd been there. And she completely agreed with his sentiment. She'd never wanted the stories of princess' when she was growing up. The only time she enjoyed hearing those was when her brother Bill would tell her the story of the princess herself going on to rule on her own. Stories like Joan of Arc, a woman who went into battle, that was what she'd wanted to hear.

"What?" he asked her. Apparently she'd been stopped and staring at him for too long.

"You know what, Harry," she intentionally said his first name. "I think you and I are going to start getting along just fine."

"Yeah?" he asked curiously.

She smiled at him and then turned back to making the sandwiches for the two of them and explained. "I'm the youngest of seven and have only brothers. The first time someone read me Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I kept interrupting him because none of it made sense. I got the Evil Queen wanting to kill the princess because she was competition, or whatever. What I didn't get was why Snow White, stupid name, would break into a house that seven men lived in that was completely filthy and think; this seems like a nice place to take a nap right after I clean the house top to bottom. I've lived with seven men and A. I would never clean up after them, B. the hell am I going to want to take a nap in their soiled sheets. I'd be better off trying to have a kip on a pile of leaves in a hollowed-out tree."

"Thank you!" Harry said, sounding as though she'd been the only person he'd shared this distaste for Fairy Tale's with that understood. "And Cinderella? Who the fuck has a 'one-size fits all' shoe? And let me ask you, you're out for the night, completely dressed to the nines, and you are running away but lose a shoe. You'd take the two seconds to go back and grab it, wouldn't you? Plus, who falls so dramatically in love after two or three hours with someone they'd only just met and not have exchanged names or remembered what they looked like in that span of time?"

Ginny grinned at him over that, he gave her that signature crooked smile of his in return.

Maybe they could be friendly after all.

Over lunch they chatted in depth about all the plot holes in fairy tales and it had been one of the most fun and funny conversations she'd had in a long while. He told her about a company in the Muggle world that made films about princesses and the stories they'd come up with from different countries in the world, including one that had a girl pretending to be a boy to join the army, which was all male, and no one could tell. They agreed that these stories were amusing, but that there were for entertainment value only and in the case of army girl, could only result in little girls cutting their hair off thinking that it would make them just like the girl in the story.

After lunch they moved over to the sofa and started in on discussing some of the books he had on his shelf that she'd read.

"I liked the overall premise of The Fountainhead, made me want to start designing incredible houses, which of course I would be abysmal at, but the whole 'screw everybody else, I'm exemplary' theme behind it had me rolling my eyes a bit. I'm happy to work with people who are really good at their job," Ginny was telling him. "Those that put their all behind getting everything done right, those are the people I want to work with. They aren't necessarily the people I want to spend all my time with though. That's no way to live. You need to cut back and relax every once and a while."

"Get a healthy case of the 'fuck-its' every now and again?" Harry agreed happily. "The guys I work with are usually the only ones I spend time with, but you've met Sirius, he's my real escape. I'm not interested in talking about Quidditch all the time and since he's done raising me he's got a healthy case of it."

"Are the one's that raised us ever really done? My mum is constantly making sure I've got food in the cupboard and checking to see I've cleaned my flat properly. She's the same with all my brothers as well unfortunately, even the ones that are married and really don't appreciate it," she chuckled. She could only imagine what she'd be like if she had a Mother-in-Law stopping by to make sure that her precious boy had his towels folded properly.

Harry gave a full laugh over that. "Yeah, guess that's why Sirius is so regular about us seeing each other once a week, so he can check in on me. I like checking in on him too."

"He is quite the laugh, isn't he? I reckon he and my twin brothers would get on famously, they've all got that marauder feel about them." She felt like it had been ages since she'd had a proper chat with anyone. It had only been two weeks, but it had been two weeks of silence. She was used to having people around her talking non-stop, used to not being able to find a moment of peace to herself. It had been kind of nice for the first few days, then it had just been boring.

"You know, you're not as pretentious as I thought you were," she mused.

He smirked at her. "And you don't even want to know what I've been thinking of you the last few weeks."

"Well, now you have to tell me." She leaned in. "Did you think I was a bitch? A robot? Go on." She really did wonder how she came across when she was trying to be professional.

"Bitch, mostly," he inclined his head. "You certainly weren't nice. Or chatty."

"Eh, same could be said about you," she dismissed and leaned back in her seat. "Just wandering around your flat and brooding about. I did expect to have more run ins in the morning though," she mentioned with her thumb pointing towards his bedroom. He'd said it already this morning, but she now she wanted to confirm it. "Didn't expect you to stop having one-offs on my account. Or was it that you didn't want any more women getting hurt?"

He gave her this look, like he was choosing his next words carefully. "Both, I guess," he admitted. "It can be strange enough bringing a woman back to my flat, but when there's already an attractive one there. Er, I mean," he stopped himself, then shook his head, "whatever, I'm sure you know you're attractive. So, bringing a woman home just to find you already occupying the place, that'd be a potential waste of time. Add that to the fact that they could be getting hurt by being with me?" he shook his head. "No, don't want to risk it. That's why I haven't been going out for drinks with the guys since you've been here."

Ginny thought over the way he'd said that, not the part about him finding her attractive, she knew she could clean up with the blokes if she wanted to put in the effort, it was the bit he said about the drinks with the guys.

"You have trouble picking up women when you're sober then?" she asked. Sirius had mentioned him being a 'sloppy bitch' when he's drunk, maybe that was when he let his inner douche take over.

"I've trouble giving in to all the… Okay, look," he prefaced, sitting up straighter. "I'm not saying I think I'm hot shit and being pretentious," he rolled his eyes. "But I'm a professional Quidditch player, and I know I'm halfway decent to look at, the publicists and whatnot tell me that all the time. So, it isn't like I need to try hard when I'm out. In fact, I don't need to try at all. They come up to me. And when I'm sober, I have a problem with that. It's fake, it's vain, it isn't real. That flirting that I did with you in my walk-in when you first got here? That wasn't me, it was just a short minute of enjoying the challenge."

Wow, if that was a line then this guy was a much better actor than she'd thought. Either way, she wasn't biting. She was still on the job and it didn't matter how gorgeous his eyes were or that he'd suddenly gotten ten times more appealing in the last few hours since they'd properly started talking to each other. This was still her assignment.

She turned sideways on the couch to lay back against the arm rest comfortably. "Isn't that all anyone wants? Something real? My parents have got it, and I think they set the bar pretty high. They've been together for nearly four decades and are still nauseatingly happy together."

Harry took her lead of pulling away from each other and put his feet up on the coffee table. "I wonder if my parents would have still been together if they hadn't passed away. They got married right out of Hogwarts."

"So did mine," Ginny told him.

"They had me right away," he said.

"My oldest brother is a bastard, we just don't talk about it."

"I guess divorce isn't really a thing in the wizarding world either. So, whether they were happy or not, I guess they still would have been married."

It sounded to her ears like this was a question that weighed on him from time to time.

"Do you have a picture of them around?" she asked. He didn't have any of them displayed on the walls.

"Yeah. I've a photo album with just pictures of the two of them together from the time they were about sixteen to when they were twenty-one."

"Any of them candid shots?"

"Yeah."

"Did they look annoyingly in love with each other?"

"Yeah," he said with a loving smile on his face while he looked down at his hand.

"I say they'd've lasted then."

He nodded and gave a sigh before closing his eyes and resting his head back against the back of the couch. "Maybe one day."

"You're looking for that for yourself then?"

"It's just, I see Sirius and how he's spent his life just flitting between women and I don't want that." He'd raised his head back up to look at her directly and caught her dubious expression. A knowing flush came to his cheeks from her stare down. "Well, you don't know for sure until you try," he defended his previous actions.

"Were you trying to get to triple digits?" she laughed. "Oh, wait, have you actually got there? Were there names missing from your list?" Ginny made a face at him. "There is such a thing as too high a number of bed partners. That is, assuming it all took place in a bed."

He scoffed and tossed a pillow at him. "Why are you here again?"

"To protect your body, not your feelings," she teased.

The day passed on with the two of them hanging out on the couch. Harry made dinner for the both of them and then he introduced her to something she'd heard of, but never seen used before; he had a television in his bedroom.

She hadn't known how to use it though. Same as with the video camera that she'd found when she first arrived, no idea how it worked, only knew what it did.

He made some popcorn and put on a movie for them to watch after she'd locked up his flat for the night. He said that popcorn was an integral part of the movie watching experience. He also said that the movie was supposed to have been one of the best movies of all time. She'd thought it was confusing and weird right up until the end when everything made sense. From the picture on the box the movie thing came in she'd also thought it was about men fighting over soap. It had been fun to watch the play, sorry, movie, from the comfort of his bed, and his bed was well more comfortable than her own, and certainly better than the cot.

The second movie he'd put on was something about a man put in prison. It was interesting, but it moved slow and she wound up falling asleep in the middle of it. When she woke up again it was morning and she was incredibly comfortable. His mattress was a dream and his pillows were down filled, his blanket too was duvet and wonderfully weighted. What really made her comfortable though, was the fact that Harry was spooning her from behind.

It felt better than she wanted to admit having him wrapped around her like he was.

He's the job, reminded the nagging voice at the back of her mind.

But it wouldn't hurt anyone to simply enjoy a slow start to wakefulness that included the enjoyment of having a man cuddled into her like this again. It had been a while since she'd last been in a position like this, and those morning cuddles were one of the best parts of being in a relationship. She missed them.

Ginny had read once that it took 20 seconds for a hug to be healing, thus, feeling an embrace like this must do wonders for the soul and she wanted to relish in the sensation of his arm around her and the warmth of his chest pressed against her back.

Plus, they'd decided to try and sell that they were a couple in case the Vengeful Maid made an appearance.

Yesterday had been really nice too; actually getting to know him instead of the two of them simply orbiting each other as they had been. They hadn't talked about anything specific, or even the reason why she was there, it was all just nonsense, and it had been very nice.

Ginny simply lay there for about ten minutes, drifting between falling back asleep and convincing herself it was time to get up, then Harry started shifting and sucked in a deep breath that meant he too was waking up slowly.

His mind wasn't the only thing waking slowly either.

It had been a long while since she'd felt morning wood against her bum, and wow, it seemed that Mr. Harry Potter is a grower and not a shower.

She felt the moment that he'd become awake enough to realize the position they were in and felt him give pause, unsure of whether he wanted to move away or stay exactly as he was. She'd already been awake long enough to enjoy it and she'd allow him the same courtesy.

And she was curious about what he'd do.

The last woman that had been in his bed had woken up alone in it while he'd gone off to have a shower. Would he do the same thing to her? Had Gisele Marchbanks just been a heavy sleeper?

To Ginny's surprise, Harry pulled her a little tighter to him and she could feel his nose being buried in her hair.

She wanted to damn her body for responding the way it did to that.

Shivers. It gave her actual shivers of excitement that made all the nerves between her legs purr with interest and demand she rock back against that morning wood of his.

She didn't though.

It took a lot of willpower, but she didn't move.

He did.

His hand that was hugging her around the middle moved up slightly towards her chest.

"Potter," she whispered in warning.

He froze. And her body screamed out in protest for being denied the further sensation of being groped.

There was only one place that would have led; he'd hugged her closer, if she let him cop a feel then she'd wind up rubbing her bum against his erection, then he'd probably kiss her shoulder and then work that mouth of his up her neck, then she'd turn her head and then they'd be kissing. From there it would devolve into him being on top of her with her legs around him while they snogged and started pulling off their clothes and then went at it like bunnies.

That couldn't happen.

She was supposed to be protecting him, not fucking him.

Reluctantly, she put her hand over his and pushed it back so it would rest on his hip.

"Sorry," he muttered and rolled so he was on his back.

Ginny pouted at the loss of warmth. "Don't be," she assured him, then rolled so she was on her back as well. "This bed is insanely comfortable."

"When a third of your life is supposed to be spent sleeping, mattresses and bedding are not something you should skimp out on," he told her.

"It is an investment though, isn't it?" She could only guess at how much it set him back for this luxury. She'd gone mattress shopping once and knew how high a price it could be for something like this.

He didn't say anything to that. Ginny checked the time and saw it was getting close to seven in the morning. "Do you have practice today?" It was Sunday and not a game day, but that didn't mean he wasn't expected at a pitch somewhere.

"No, but I want to get in a workout."

"You'll grab the shower first then?" she offered.

He still had his eyes closed and she watched as he sucked in a breath. "No, it's fine. You go first."

It looked to her like he was trying to gain control of himself. "You know, I've seen you naked and you were just tightly cuddled into me," she pointed out.

His eyes snapped open and locked onto hers. "What are you saying?" he asked, sounding like he already knew what she was alluding to.

"That you aren't hiding anything," she smirked. "Now, wouldn't you be more comfortable taking care of that in the shower?"

"Playing that game, are we?" he asked with a knowing smirk of his own, then pulled down the blanket a bit so was down by her waist and looked pointedly at her chest. "Cold, are you?"

Ginny looked down and saw how obvious it was through her shirt that her nipples were hard from arousal. She pursed her lips at him and immediately decided that if they were going to play this game, then she was going to come out on top.

"Fine," she leaned close to him so she could whisper in his ear. "I'll go take care of things in your shower first." Without letting him have time to react she pulled back the blanket and stood up.

"So, you admit it?! Then why'd you stop me?"

She smiled at him and shook her head. "I'm on a case, Potter. Here for work, and I certainly don't get paid to shag you."

"But you want to?" he asked, like he needed to know the answer.

She rolled her eyes. "I've been cooped up in here for weeks now and when I first arrived, I found a video camera in the room I'm supposed to sleep in and I can't help thinking I missed something else in there that might air my private business. Humans are animals, even the women, and we have needs, and you happen to be hot. Of course I want to. I'm just not going to," she stated plainly and walked away out of the room.

After closing the door to the bathroom she splashed some cold water on her face and chastised herself for doing that. One good day of conversation with him and now they were flirting like that after waking up the way they did in the morning? That couldn't happen. Whatever it was she was now feeling towards him, she needed to shut it down.

Ginny turned the tap on to get the shower running and started stripping off her clothes before she got in. Taking the bar of soap in hand she got to work lathering herself up, wanting it to be a quick shower so that he wouldn't take her teasing as truth and think she was 'taking care of things' in here. It may well have been a whores bath with how quickly she finished up.

Before she turned the water off again though there was a sound that she heard from outside the bathroom, something too loud to have been on purpose.

She left the shower on as she stepped out of it and grabbed a towel off the holder. She wrapped it around herself and tucked in the corner above her breast to hold it up and put her ear to the door.

"One of them in there already?!" a woman was crying.

Ginny's eyes went wide. There was a woman in the main room and her wand was still in Harry's bedroom. What the fuck kind of Auror protection was she supposed to be?

"I tried everything to get you to notice me! Every time I went out, I made sure I looked just like those women that you had written down," the woman was complaining. It had to be the maid, Katrina, she'd shown up to take out her anger on him, just like they thought she might. She must have been waiting for Ginny to get into the shower before she came in to confront Harry. Where had she been laying in wait though? Her timing couldn't have just happened to be this perfect.

Ginny didn't have time to get dressed. And without her wand she would only have the element of surprise and brute force on her side. There was the chance that if she opened the door then the woman would hear the volume of the shower amplify and that would alert her, so Ginny had to be quick.

"It wasn't anything personal," Harry was saying to her, sounding like he was trying to calm her down. "None of those women meant anything to me, I promise you. I'd just had a few and they were there. You are clearly looking for more than that. You wouldn't want to be one of them. Do you know when I found out some of their names, Katrina?"

Good boy, Ginny thought, say her name, make her feel special. Hopefully he was making sure her back was towards the bathroom as well.

"I found out in the morning. And, see, here I already know your name."

"Only because you found out what I did! Why didn't you notice me before then? Do you know when we met for the first time? Did you even remember that I have a key to your flat? How many women do you give keys to?!"

"No. You're right. I didn't remember you. But why didn't you just come up and say anything to me when you saw me out at the pubs?" he asked her softly. "I would have remembered you if you'd actually come up to me."

"That's not the way the fairy tale works!" Katrina cried. "Prince Charming ALWAYS notices his princess!"

This chick was nuts, Ginny thought to herself. Yes, she'd been sending letters and such causing harm to his past romances, but she didn't realize that Katrina was delusional like this.

And Harry Potter was supposed to be Prince Charming? What the hell had their first introduction entailed? None of her letters that she'd sent to him mentioned anything about this scenario she had built up in her head, they had been about how he could do better than whichever woman she'd sent the booby-trapped letters to.

Ginny had heard enough. She turned the knob carefully and cracked the door open. Katrina was standing with her back to the bathroom, facing the kitchen, where Harry was.

Good boy, she thought again.

Ginny slipped out of the bathroom as Katrina was yelling at him and closed the door again. Katrina was holding a gun in her hand! Not a wand, a gun. Well, they'd been told she wasn't very magically powerful, so they should have been expecting that as well. The gun wasn't being aimed directly at Harry, so it seemed Katrina didn't want to hurt him, or she was fighting with herself over whether a murder/suicide was on the table.

"The last time, at the Star and Sailor, you made eye contact with me! Why didn't you follow through? You were supposed to come over to me! But no, that oaf of a Beater Higgins had to throw Gisele in your face. Do you know how difficult it was for me to find out where you all would be that night? You'd known about the warnings I'd sent out to the other women by then too. Now it's been weeks and they know who I am now." She aimed her gun higher so it was pointing at Harry's chest. "Which means now I have nothing left to lose."

Ginny quickly went down and rolled forward so she could swipe Katrina's legs out from under her. It would cause her arm to go up and the gun to point towards the ceiling. There was a bang that went off and the bullet hit the wall as the girl fell back in surprise and the sound caused Ginny's ears to ring, but she had Katrina down on her back.

They struggled and Ginny had to slam Katrina's hand against the hardwood a few times until she lost her grip on the gun. Ginny pinned her hands above her head to the floor and slid the gun further away from them.

"Harry, are you alright?" Ginny called out, not taking her eyes off Katrina.

There was no response.

"Potter, I swear if you don't answer me in one second," she warned.

"Fine," he blurted out from a few feet away.

"Go and get me my wand then," she ordered.

"You'll never be enough for him," Katrina growled. "No one knows him like I do. No one will make him happy like I would have."

"You need to get your meds right," Ginny shook her head. "I'm not here to make him happy. I'm here to stop you from killing him you daft idiot."

Harry cleared his throat and Ginny caught her wand being held out from the corner of her eye. Keeping Katrina's hands locked with her one hand, she took her wand in her right and put a body-bind on Katrina.

Ginny's heart was racing from what just happened. Apprehending a wanted person certainly was one way to wake you up in the morning. She felt like she was close to having a heart attack. Nothing she did with Chris on the sparring mat ever truly compared to the real life situations.

Sitting up properly she caught her breath and then realized she could feel a bit more of the cool air from the open space against her bare skin than she should have and looked down. In their grappling her towel had come undone and as she had been straddling Katrina when pinning her down, it had now settled around her hips to keep her lower half modestly covered, her breasts however were on full display for Katrina, and for Harry.

Trying to maintain some level of control she looked up at Harry, who seemed frozen where he stood with this display in front of him. She pulled up the towel over her chest and stood up. "We'll still have to interrogate her, make sure it was just her that was sending out those letters."

"Right," he said quickly, "right, yeah." He wasn't showing any signs of moving through.

"The shower is still running, if you wanted to use it," Ginny prodded. "She's certainly not going anywhere."

He seemed dumbstruck, whether it was because he'd just seen two women fighting, had a gun pointed at him a minute ago or because one of them had just had her breasts on display, she wasn't sure. Harry nodded at mention of the shower, but still didn't move.

"Harry!" Ginny snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Go into the bathroom, take a shower, then come back out here, because we still need to talk about what just happened," she ordered.

He came out of his daze and locked his eyes on hers before nodding and finally turning on his heel and heading straight into the bathroom, the steam built up from the shower still running burst out of the room making Harry disappear into the cloud of it before he closed the door behind him.

With him no longer having his eyes on her she let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding and cast a glance down at Katrina. The woman was stuck in the same position, but her eyes were glaring at Ginny.

"If you knew him like you say you do, you'd know he hates fairy tales," Ginny told her smugly.

She went over to the Floo and opened it back up, then called out for Robards office before sticking her head through. He hadn't been in his office though. She tried again with the receptionist Floo and gave her the message to get the necessary persons over to Potter's flat right away.

Knowing she only had a minute or so, Ginny rushed to get dressed in the den and then grabbed her wand from Harry's nightstand and stood guard over Katrina until the others showed up.

Harry came out of the shower before anyone arrived and walked out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his waist, just like he had been her first day there. Inside, she was smiling about the memory of it, outside she did nothing but stare as he gave pause, then nodded at her and continued on to his bedroom.

It took nearly ten minutes for Robards and Chris to show up with Mason and Doherty, they had the Puddlemere Team Manager Philbert Deverill with them as well. Ginny had expected Bouchard again, not the Team Manager. Deverill looked so relieved to be seeing the sight before him.

"This is her then?" Deverill asked.

Ginny resisted the urge to quip back about how it wasn't, that this was some other crazy stalker Potter had. "This is her. We still have to interrogate her though." She held up the gun by the finger hold and gave it to Chris, who knew more about Muggle weaponry. "She came in here armed with this."

"She was going to shoot him?" Deverill panicked.

"I'm fine," Harry said coming back into the room.

"We'll take her in," Mason stated. "Get her confession and find out what we can."

Mason and Chris pulled Katrina to her feet and removed the body bind curse so she could move on her own. The woman started crying right away, sobbing about how Harry should have given her a chance. Everyone tuned it out though and she was through the Floo with the other two right away.

Ginny went to Doherty. "You weren't stationed across on the roof?" she asked.

Only yesterday they had found out who Katrina was. Ginny shouldn't have been on her own there. If someone else had been watching then it shouldn't have required her to wait so long for backup.

"We were," he told her. "Well, we had been," he changed his story apologetically. "I swear, it was only ten minutes that we weren't both at our post. Mason saw you head into the bathroom, then he went to grab some coffee and I needed to take a leak, by the time I got back I saw you just standing there by the sofa." He shook his head at himself. "I couldn't see her on the ground at your feet. I'm sorry Ginny. It could have been bad and that's on us."

Ginny pursed her lips at him. It could have been so much worse. The good thing was, at least they hadn't been able to see her when her towel slipped down. "Don't let it happen again," she warned.

"We'll need both of your statements," Robards told she and Harry.

()()()

Three days later and Ginny was back at her desk. It was Wednesday and life had returned to being what it was before her Potter Detail. A bit anti-climactic; sparring with Chris in the morning, breakfast during the morning meeting, paperwork.

It was nice to be back in her own flat, but she wished she'd realized about sleeping in Harry's bed earlier in her detail, his mattress had been incredible and she'd only had one night to enjoy it.

She hadn't heard from him either.

Not that she thought she would, it was just… Saturday had been nice. Waking up like that on Sunday morning had been nice too.

"Lunch?" Chris asked as he stood by her desk.

"Yeah, alright," she said in a daze and closed the folder she'd been studying. "Where were you thinking?"

"I've a pub meal in mind," he told her and she followed in alongside him to the Floo.

They came out at a pub that she hadn't been to before, but there was a lot of blue decorating the place with a touch of yellow. It was fairly crowded too.

"This is a Quidditch pub, isn't it?" Ginny asked him. It was a Puddlemere fans Quidditch Pub too. "Why did you bring me here?"

"I heard that Potter might be here," he told her easily.

Ginny looked up at him, gobsmacked. "What, he's got rid of one stalker, now you want him to think he's got another?"

They found a table and Chris gave her a look. "You've been a little 'worked up' these past few mornings," he told her.

"I've been a little 'locked up' for the past few weeks, so yeah," she said dismissively. She may have been a little more aggressive in their morning workouts, but she'd been tossing and turning the last few nights because she kept playing through these 'what if' scenarios in her mind.

"This isn't a 'locked up' kind of worked up, this is a 'need to get laid' kind of worked up," he waggled his eyebrows at her. "Potter got you that way, didn't he?" he grinned.

Damn him for seeing right through her. "And if he did?" she countered. "What would bringing me here do?"

"I may have found out they were coming here for lunch today. Thought you might like to get it out of your system now that he isn't your charge."

Ginny scoffed and shook her head. Of course he'd be dismissive about the whole idea, what was it to him? He had a man to go home to at the end of every day and had for quite some time. I'm sure the first time he and David wanted to get it on they weren't so cavalier about the whole thing though. Ginny, however, didn't want a one off.

Before she could rip into him for his lack of judgement though, the door to the pub opened and all the patrons in the establishment let out a cheer because the Puddlemere team had walked in.

Ginny wanted to bury her head in the sand, but opted to hide it behind a menu instead.

"I can't believe you did this," she growled at him.

"Yes, you can." She could hear his smile. "Ah, here's the waitress. Brilliant. I'll have a burger and chips, please. Ginny?"

The volume with which he said her name had her rolling her eyes. "Yeah, same for me," she told the waitress, then had to hand over her make-shift cloaking device, her eyes wandering, of their own accord, over to the other side of the room. Lo and behold, there was Harry Potter with his team, and he was looking at her with those beautiful green eyes of his.

She gave him a lame wave and her insides clenched up when she saw him getting up and making his way over to them. "I hate you," she said to Chris just before Harry was in hearing distance.

"You love me," Chris grinned at her. "Mister Potter!" Chris greeted him when he got to the table. "Fancy meeting you here. Mind keeping my seat warm? I'll be back in a minute."

Subtlety was not high on the list of the mans qualifications. Ginny glared daggers at Chris as he wandered off towards the bathroom.

Harry took up in the seat across from her. "It's been quiet in my flat with you gone."

Ginny raised her eyebrows at him. "It was quiet in your flat while I was there too."

He gave her that signature crooked grin that she'd seen only in magazines and on Saturday. "Yeah, it was too bad we didn't get to know each other better before that last day there," he admitted.

Ginny played with the straw in her ice water. "I have been regretting that I didn't get more of an opportunity to enjoy that bed of yours." It slipped out before she realized how much of an innuendo that could have been. "Because it was super comfortable," she tried to clarify. "Thinking of making the plunge and getting a mattress like it. And the… pillows."

His green eyes were boring into her, like they were scanning her to get a read on the likeliness of them picking up where they left off on Sunday morning.

"Relieved to have the place to yourself again?" she asked. "Looks like you're back to going out with the team."

"It's lunchtime," Harry told her.

She wanted to scoff, as though nighttime was the only time to pick up a woman? Instead she said, "it is. That's why Chris brought me here. That and, well, I guess he knew you'd show up."

"Oh? Have we got some unfinished business?" he smirked.

There he was, that cocky prick she met on her first day at his place.

Fuck it, Ginny thought.

"Yeah," she told him plainly. "Want to go bang it out in the loo? Get it done with?" Honestly, she didn't know whether she was testing him or not. She was mad at herself for thinking, even briefly, for those last few hours they spent together that she could see some potential there for a relationship. He was a player, if they shagged in a bathroom stall here, then she'd be able to put the nail in the coffin on that idea and move on.

He frowned at her.

Why was he frowning at her?

He wasn't supposed to look upset at that offer, he was supposed to jump on it!

"No," he told her straight out. "Sirius wanted me to invite you over for dinner on Friday at mine. If you're available."

He….

He what?

"You're inviting me over for dinner?" she asked. Harry might have said it was Sirius wanting her over there for dinner, but he wouldn't have asked if he didn't want her there himself as well.

Oh fuck. That wasn't a nail in a coffin, that was pulling another ruddy nail out of the coffin!

"I am. And this time you won't be on the job and will be able to enjoy yourself properly."

She couldn't stop the smile from coming to her face. "Well, I was hoping to get another chance to chat with Sirius. He's a fun guy."

Harry nodded. "I've the same opinion. He did say he expects me to make something extra special for it. Sounds like I'll have my evenings full of figuring that out and best be staying in for the night until then. Make sure I get the meal just right."

"Right," Ginny said as she stared at him.

He passed on the offer to shag her in the bathroom, now he was telling her he wasn't going to be seeing any other women this week, even with Katrina now put away.

"I'm not that big of a chauvinistic pig, you know," he told her.

"I've come to realize that," she smiled.

He got up from the table as the waitress put the two meals in front of them. Chris wasn't back yet, but he would be in a moment.

Harry leaned over and gave Ginny a kiss on her cheek. "Maybe you'll take another look at that mattress of mine too. Make sure it's the one you want to go with."

Ginny smiled wider at that. "Maybe."

She watched him walk away to the other side of the pub.

"So?" Chris asked as he took up his vacated seat again.

Ginny shrugged and picked up her burger. "I guess I don't hate you so much anymore."

()()()

AN- I know, I know 'what happens next?'. Well, I'm evil, and I'm letting you use your imagination. XOXO