AN- Not much to this one, you'll understand the reason for it in the Authors Note at the end.
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Criticism
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It was the end of a long day and Harry was walking through the Daily Prophet offices in search of his wife's desk. Most of the open office space was devoid of people, which was strange for a newsroom. He'd been here only a few times before, as Ginny did most of her work from home and when she did come into the office it was usually for a meeting and then she was gone again, there was generally more hustle and bustle going on.
Today she had some back and forth work to do with other countries concerning the upcoming Worlds that she'd be heading off to Greece for in three weeks so it was just easier for everyone for her to be working at her desk today, and she'd asked him to come by once he was done work so they could head out for dinner together somewhere in the Muggle world.
He spotted her hunched over her desk near the middle of the room. She looked to still be working away hard, her quill moving feverishly, the feather twitching with every letter.
He'd been glad when she transitioned from a professional Quidditch player to a columnist, it meant she got to watch all the Quidditch she wanted, him too, and get paid to give her opinion on it; a dream job.
"Nearly done?" he asked quietly when he got to her desk, bending down and giving a kiss to her cheek.
She gave a squeak of surprise and whipped around, eyes wide with shock. "Harry! Make a noise or something!" she chastised. Only a second later and she was smiling and shaking her head at him.
He felt proud of himself for still being able to sneak up on her. When they were at home she was always able to tell when he was coming up behind her.
"I just need a few more minutes to finish this. I'm in just the right headspace for it. If I stop now I won't remember what I was going to write next," she told him, turning back to her article.
He'd been around her enough times when she was in the middle of her writing that he knew that meant for him to sit down and shut up or bugger off. He smiled to himself and took a seat in a chair on the other side of her desk, noticing the piles of envelopes around her; a lot of them were unopened.
He took up one, looking at who it was from. Someone in America had written to her, and it was dated to have arrived a few weeks ago. He frowned at that. She'd written an article for one of the major newspapers over there a month ago, so it must have been a letter about that. But why hadn't she bothered opening it?
He saw the envelope under that one was also from someone in America and dated from the same time.
On the other side of her desk there were two different piles, also looking to be fan letters, one stack opened, one not.
He gave her a cursory look.
She could easily see him out of her peripheral vision, if she had an issue with him looking this over then she would have told him so. He took one of the opened letters and noted the name, the handwriting looked like it was a child that wrote it. Harry held up the envelope in question and Ginny gave him a dismissive nod, letting him know it didn't bother her if he read it.
Inside the envelope were two pieces of paper, one was a written note in large printing letting Ginny know that this little girl, Suzie, thought that Ginny was the greatest and she hoped to be her when she grew up. It was such a cute letter that Harry was grinning at it, and that was before he saw the accompanying crayon drawing of two girls on broomsticks with puffy clouds and trees in the background, both girls with one arm raised in a fist in the air like they'd just scored a goal.
It reminded him of the drawings their kids used to give her when she was still playing for the Harpies.
Their kids were all off at Hogwarts now and well passed the crayon drawing phase of their life. It was nice to see Ginny was still getting these masterpieces done for her by other kids that looked up to her.
The next opened envelope under the one from Suzie was from a gentleman in Surrey that was complementing her on 'telling it like it is'. He seemed most appreciative that she didn't waste her time with adjectives and he always looked forward to her column and was looking forward to reading about the Quidditch World Cup from her point of view.
"There, done!" Ginny said happily and cast a drying spell on her parchment. "Merlin, that one went on for longer than I expected. Sometimes I don't even realize all the opinions I have on things like Beaters Bats until I start pouring them all out onto a page."
That amused him greatly, "Beaters Bats? I didn't even know you had an opinion on them."
"Neither did I," she grinned. "That was until I gave a few different ones a go at the Puddlemere practice pitch this morning. Quality Quidditch asked me to try out a few of them and I figured, why not. There are so many different ones though! The wood they're made out of, the charms that can stop the vibrations coming down the shaft after giving a good whack to a Bludger." She gave her left shoulder a rub and rolled it around for a stretch. "It was a pretty good work out for my arms!"
"So, which was your favorite then?" he grinned.
"You'll just have to wait for the article to come out, now, won't you?" she teased.
"Come on, what's the point in being married to a Quidditch columnist if I can't be the first to get the inside scoop?"
"The tickets, obviously," she rolled her eyes at him.
He chuckled and pointed at the stacks of envelopes on her desk. "Looks like you've got a lot of fan mail to go through."
"Oh," her expression turned from happy to frowning, "no, I've opened the ones I'm going to open, the rest of them I'll chuck in the fireplace."
"What? Why?" The two letters that he'd read had been full of compliments, and the one from the little girl had been so adorable.
There was a twitch of annoyance in her cheek and she made a copy of her article, rolling one up and casting a charm on it so it would go to the editing department and putting the copy in her drawer. Then she reached across her desk and picked up the stack of unopened envelopes that came from in the country and began flipping through them, holding them up for him one by one.
"This guy only comments on how all my opinions are wrong, this person doesn't like my use of the Oxford comma, this one keeps remarking on my previous career with the Harpies and pointing out mistakes in games I've played, this one thinks I'm sexy and wants to know if I'm up for cheating on you with him, this person only sends profanity-"
On and on she went flipping through the envelopes listing off the many criticisms her readers had with her.
"Why do they keep reading your column and sending in their complaints?" Harry asked her incredulously and reached across the desk to pick up one, reading the name of the author. "Do you actually know what's inside the letters?"
"No, I'm making assumptions from the first few letters they sent me. I just can't be arsed because they piss me off too much. I feel much better simply ripping them into a million pieces or burning them."
There was a great amount of spite that he could hear in her voice. Harry had to hold back a laugh because he could tell she'd love nothing more than to track these people down and throttle them.
"What about these one's then?" he asked, pointing to the stack that looked to have all come from America.
"Oh, fuck no. I'm not opening that can of flobberworms. I've no doubt that their simply full of comments on my grammar."
"More issues with the Oxford comma?"
"Not just that." She sat up straight in her chair and putting on an American as she prattled off, "why is there an extra 'u' here, don't you know how to spell colour? That's not how you spell centre! Go back to your own country. Don't take jobs away from Americans. You're nothing but a washed-up player with nothing better to do." She shook her head. "Drives me absolutely mental! So, I can't be bothered."
His mouth was hanging open in shock. "Why are they even bothering?"
Ginny shrugged, "no idea. Guess they think their opinion is that important that they have to. I've some owls that come in that are commenting on series that I've done that they haven't even finished reading yet! And, the rest of the series is available to them! It's mental! My column is supposed to be for entertainment, puff pieces, they don't see it as that."
"Can't you do something about it?" he wondered.
She gave him a curious look, "like what? Get someone else to read through them?"
She had him there. When he'd started receiving post after the war there was some poor Auror assigned to opening his mail and filtering out all the threatening or booby trapped letters, as well as a few pairs of dirty knickers.
"There must be an intern or someone around here that could go through them and chuck the frivolous complaints."
"Well, there isn't. I just remember the one's that piss me off the most and opt not to read them. Then I go home and have angry sex with my husband to get it out of my system," she smirked and gave him a wink.
He opened his mouth to retort and then his mind flashed back to a few times when she had come home and dragged him off to the bedroom, claiming she needed him to fix her mood. "That's what it was about?!" he asked, completely floored.
"Sometimes," she grinned. "Didn't hear you complaining."
"So you would read your, for lack of better term, 'hate-mail', then come home and get me to fix your mood by having me give you an orgasm?" He couldn't believe this.
"Works every time!" she grinned happily. "Now where did you want to go for dinner? I'm thinking Thai food." She grabbed her purse from under her desk.
Ginny had started heading toward the lift and he had to rush to catch up with her.
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AN- Not much of a story there. I just needed to turn my rage over some reviews into something productive so I didn't smash my laptop.
BTW, feel free to NOT leave a review. Particularly about grammar, because its annoying. (See what I did there? I used the wrong 'its'. ON PURPOSE. Go ahead and seethe about it.)
I'm sure there are a few fellow writers chuckling about this right now because you get the same annoying reviews as well. Do what I do; copy their handles down and force yourself to delete them from your email right away, or start a really angsty story so you can harness that rage and get in the right emotional state to write it. (Healthy and productive! That is, of course, if you don't have a special someone to have angry sex with to put you back in a good mood.)