AN- Prompt request was for Ginny to have kept saying 'no' to Harry when he proposed until she couldn't put it off anymore.

This marks Chapter 100! Thought I'd tie it in with the Chapter 1 storyline :)

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Contact for an Emergency

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She didn't even finish reading the letter, she'd only gotten to the part that read 'St. Mungo's' and 'serious' and that was it, she took off to the door, shoving the letter in her purse and slipping on a pair of Harry's trainers by mistake, then ran to the fireplace on the other side of the room.

There was ash in her mouth and likely across her face when she arrived spinning out the other side of the Floo.

It must not have been an uncommon sight to see people arriving in the reception area of St. Mungo's in all levels of disarray, and if they were anything like Ginny was at that moment, then they hadn't cared one lick what they looked like either.

There was a line up in front of her to talk to the receptionist and find out where she was supposed to be going. Her hand dug back into her purse to get the letter to see if there were more details other than the two that had jumped out at her; 'serious' was the word that she had really focused on, she had completely ignored the 'not' that was written beside it in the untidy scrawl that Harry's partner had added.

People didn't write owls about things like this if they weren't serious; he would have Floo called her if it wasn't serious, Harry would have come home and told her himself if it wasn't serious.

Spell Damage, she thought. She didn't see it on the page, but there was a sign above the desk three people in front of her that read that.

It's probably where he was. Spell damaged and laying on a gurney in the Janus Thickey ward on the fourth floor.

It could be a poison induced injury though, that was the third floor.

But then, what if he was bitten by something? That would be the second floor.

Why was this Welcome Witch taking her bloody time talking to the bloke two in front of her? She should just spout off a dismissive direction, that's all her job entailed! She needed to hear two to five words out of a visitors mouth and drone out a floor number, then move onto the next person.

'The letter, Ginny. Look at the letter,' her brain shouted at her.

She could tell Jamison had been coached on what to write; injured in the line of duty, few days of recovery, being treated at St. Mungo's. And then she saw that 'not serious' was written not once, but two times.

Fucking hell! Why hadn't he just sent her a Patronus message?

"Next," the Welcome Witch called.

Ginny rushed forward. "I need to find out which ward Harry Potter is in. He's supposed to be here for recovery."

The lady behind the desk was about a decade older than Ginny and gave off the impression of having done this job for that full decades gap between them, she couldn't be bothered faking customer service; this was not a customer service job, it was an information desk; Visitors needed her, not the other way around.

She scoffed and gave Ginny a skeptical smile. "Dearie, we don't cater to people trying to get an inside scoop on our patients. Wait until someone else figures it out and it winds up in the papers, like everyone else."

"I'm not looking for the 'inside scoop'," Ginny growled at her, "I'm looking for my boyfriend."

Trying to keep her voice down right now was not easy. She didn't want to draw attention to the fact that Harry was in the hospital. It had been five years now since the Final Battle and Harry still wound up in the paper on some page or another at least once a month, this would be big news.

"Right," the woman drew out the word and discretely lifted a piece of parchment in her stack before looking back at Ginny with a very fake smile. "Thing is, unless you're related or listed as his emergency contact, I'm not telling you."

Ginny's face fell and she just stared at the witch blankly.

She wasn't his emergency contact?!

Her hands went numb when she heard this.

The witch made a gesture, one that suggested she move out of the way, a pretentious waving of her hand as though scooting a gerbil across the counter or something.

Ginny took a step in the direction the hand waving had indicated, her mind in shock and body simply doing as was suggested.

She wasn't his emergency contact, she thought again.

He was hers. She had made sure that he was the one listed. Not her mum, not one of her brothers or her friends. Harry was the person to contact if she got injured.

This was the first she was hearing about this, and it stung. It was stinging. Here, right now, she felt like she'd been hit with some sort of dazing spell and she walked over to the nearest row of seats and sat down, staring blankly into the middle distance.

She wasn't his emergency contact, and she wasn't related to him.

She'd put him down as the emergency contact because she knew that he loved her and would want to be by her side immediately if something happened. Her family would already have access to her because they were blood so it was the logical thing to do, making him her first contact on the sheet.

Maybe he'd just forgot to update the form?

She'd been in school when he started with the Aurors. It likely would have been Ron that he put down as his contact, so maybe Ron was going to be here in a minute, and he could let her in to see him.

She'd been out of school for four years though, that had been plenty of time for him to take a minute with an administrative assistant to change a fucking name on a form.

Jamison, his partner, he knew who to reach out to in case of an emergency, the hospital should know as well. It was her. She was his girlfriend.

Ginny buried her face in her hands

Why was she still just his girlfriend?

Because she was worried what other people would think, that's why.

It was stupid of her to keep putting it off.

She blamed the fucking tabloids. Any chance they got those vultures would print another picture, another story, each time claiming that their relationship was on the rocks, or that there was a possible baby bump sighting. Ginny thought that if she had a ring on her finger and a new last name then those stories would just keep on coming like an avalanche.

She rested her head back on the wall behind her chair and closed her eyes, picturing the first time he'd asked her. It had been perfect too; clumsy and perfect, just like Harry. He'd been helping her train, set one of those little challenges that they liked to do. He'd said if he could block three out of ten of her shots on the hoop then he would win and be able to set the prize. Well, he didn't win, but he still had to tell her what he wanted.

What he'd wanted was for her to say 'yes'. And for a moment there, she almost did. He was standing there, ring in hand, fully committed to them being married, even suggesting they be engaged for a full year first before she changed her name to Potter.

And she wanted to marry him, she wanted to take his last name and have children with him. She just wanted to establish herself as a lone entity first.

Growing up she'd been just another Weasley, then after all the other Weasley's had left school, and even though they'd been broken up at the time, she'd been Harry Potter's girlfriend, and she held that title in her last year of school as well.

She'd been about to get signed onto a professional Quidditch team when he first asked and she wanted it to be because of her own merit, not because her being there would draw publicity. If she had that ring on her finger, then there was a chance that that would be why she'd been asked to join. If there was a ring on her finger, then there was also a chance that she wouldn't be getting moved up through the ranks from reserve to second string; because everyone would just be waiting until she got knocked up and needed to take time off.

So, she'd said no. More accurately, she'd said 'not now'.

He'd understood. It had probably helped that she'd told him over and over again that she loved him, there was no one else for her, but she wanted to wait to get engaged.

He'd asked her again when she made second-string.

Second-string wasn't her end goal though.

Around this time last year, he'd asked her again, because she'd made first string.

That time she'd said no because the National Team was scouting her for the World Cup.

The World Cup was coming up shortly, and she was on the team.

He hadn't asked her again after she'd made the team, and she couldn't blame him for not wanting to hear 'no' for a fourth time.

All those no's, they'd all been a mistake. If she'd said yes, then she would know where he was right now and how bad it was.

Someone walked past her towards the stairs and Ginny followed them with her eyes, then she stood up and followed them with her feet before she had even knew what she was going to do, how she was going to find him.

It was two hallways later that she realized that if Harry was here, then it was likely that another Auror was here, hanging around and waiting for information. If she just walked all of the floors, made a stop into the cafeteria, then she should find someone that could tell her what was going on. All of the Aurors he worked with knew who she was and that she should have the privilege of knowing what how he was doing and what happened.

She wandered the halls, climbed the stairs, peered through doors as they swung open and shut, she couldn't find anyone she knew though.

And her anxiety grew.

As one rose through the floors of St. Mungos, the maladies didn't exactly get better. If he was on one of the first floors then he would have been in proper recovery, they would have known exactly what was wrong with him and how to treat it. However now she was on the fifth floor- cafeteria and gift shop, and still she hadn't seen anyone.

She was starting to get dizzy with worry.

'He was okay,' she lied to herself. 'He has to be okay. You would have heard if he wasn't okay.'

Panic grew in her chest and she grabbed her wand, no longer able to take it, and drew it out. "Expecto Patronum," she yelled.

()()()

Brendan Jamison, Harry's partner, had helped him get home from the hospital after he'd been patched up. It had been a nasty cut he sustained to his side and it still smarted, but he was okay. The Healers at the hospital were less cautious than he'd gotten used to in school with Madame Pomphrey, but Pomphrey was dealing with kids who had no sense of mortality, whereas when dealing with adults injured in the line of duty that had responsibilities that included cleaning, they were right in suspecting that the adults would jump at the opportunity to lay in their own beds until feeling 100 percent better, maybe a bit longer.

"Ginny?" Harry called out, wincing as he sat down on the couch.

"I sent her an owl letting her know you'd gotten hurt," Brendan told him while he got him a glass of water.

Harry frowned and looked around. That should mean that she would be up and waiting for him to get back. He leaned over and looked at the hooks on the door, her purse wasn't there, but her shoes were.

"Maybe she went to bed?" Brendan shrugged and gave him the glass of water.

That didn't make him any less confused.

If she'd been the one that got hurt then he'd be pacing until she showed up, then offering to carry her to bed, he wouldn't be already laying in it sleeping peacefully.

Harry started to drink his water when a shining silver horse galloped into the sitting room and went to Brendan.

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" it shouted at him in Ginny's voice.

Brendan blinked at it.

"Er, what exactly did you put in your letter to her?" Harry asked.

Brendan was too stunned to respond to him, he just pulled out his own wand and sent a Patronus back to her so it would tell her they were at their flat, hers and Harry's.

It was a tense three minutes later Ginny came tumbling out of the Floo, completely covered in soot and wearing his shoes. She stomped right over to Brendan and slapped him across the face, "you don't send an owl like that with no further details! They wouldn't tell me anything at St. Mungo's! I didn't know if he'd been bitten, poisoned, stunned, stabbed, NOTHING! I was wandering the floors looking for him, or you, or ANYONE that could tell me what was going on."

"I said it wasn't serious," Brendan defended as he held a hand to his smarting cheek.

"You have got to be fucking joking if you think that doesn't set me off! And the fact that you wrote it twice!" She was still staring at his partner while pointing at Harry. "This one will tell you he's 'fine' until he's completely bled out on the ground, so you writing those two words twice made it worse, not better!"

Then she rounded on Harry. "And you! I'm not your emergency contact?"

He opened his mouth and closed it twice. He'd forgotten to change that little detail in his file. He'd only filled it out the form once, when he started. It just hadn't been important before, he'd kept putting it off, adding it to his to do list and then forgetting about it immediately after. When he'd first joined the Aurors he'd put Ron down as his contact because Ginny was at school, and Ron would let her know immediately if he was injured.

"I'll change it right away," he promised her. For whatever reason that made her face turn more red with anger.

"You'll do more than that! We're getting married."

"What?!"

"You heard me." She said this and then stomped off towards their bedroom.

He turned to Brendan for some insight into what was going on. Brendan looked just as surprised as he felt though. Harry tried to stand up to follow her, but as he braced his arm on the couch to get up his side twinged, and he fell back down.

He could hear her doing something in the bedroom but wasn't sure what. When Ginny came back in, she had a black velvet box in one hand and the ring he'd had for her for over four years already placed on the ring finger of her left hand.

"Can you walk?" she asked him sharply.

"What?! You aren't suggesting we just go out and get married right this second, are you?"

"Damn right I am." Her stubborn determination was radiating off of her in waves.

"Ginny, I'm fine." Her eyes narrowed at him then and he realized he shouldn't have said 'fine'. "I'm all fixed up. I got a cut on my side from a hex and it's all healed up, I just need a day of recovery and I'll be good as new again. I'll change the form, I promise."

"Not good enough. Next time you get injured and this idiot," Brendan let out a weak 'hey' of protest, "sends me an owl, I want everyone to know I'm your wife and I have the bloody right to see you without them needing to check some fucking form for your emergency contact."

He opened his mouth again to protest, but stopped, because he didn't know why he was protesting this. He'd been asking her to marry him for years, she knew exactly where he kept the ring. She had been what they'd been waiting on. Her and her paranoia that if she said yes and took his surname then certain doors and options would no longer be available to her.

"You're saying that you no longer think that there will be some opportunities you miss out on because you're married to me?" Harry asked her skeptically, with a hint of hostility. "Everything you wanted to accomplish because my name might potentially hold you back, you've done all those things?"

"That's not how I put it, and you know that! We live in a world with double standards, no one would stop you from running the Auror Department because we've got a bunch of rugrats running around, I on the other hand, it would just be assumed that I'd be too busy in the kitchen to be a starting Chaser at the World Cup. Well, I'm on the team now and I've just found out that I'm not your emergency contact, so yeah, time to get married and I'll just tell them to change the name on the jersey to show Potter on the back of it." She got louder as her tirade went on.

"I'll change my emergency contact!" he yelled at her. "When you agree to this properly it isn't going to be because of some form I forgot to update."

Ginny narrowed her eyes at him. "Harry Potter, you agree to marry me now or I swear I'll go into Human Resources tomorrow and change my emergency contact to Luna!" She stepped closer to him, and her voice got low, "and you know they wouldn't be able to find her for days."

Brendan was doing his best to stay out of their way, slowly slinking back and trying to blend in with the furniture. He was doing a good job of it too because Harry had all but forgotten he was there, all he could see was Ginny and the threatening look in her eye.

The fact that she was trying to threaten him into marrying her, when that was all he had ever wanted, it was laughable.

And he was going to call her bluff.

"Fine, let's go get married then. Where do you want to do it? Just head on down to the Ministry now, or run off to Paris and get married at some chapel? What's the plan? Do you care if your parents are there?" he asked sarcastically.

"Ministry," she said right away. "And Jamison is here, he can witness for us. It's the middle of the night but there'll still be someone there to process the paperwork. Let's do this."

She started heading back towards the Floo and Harry looked over to Brendan.

"You sure you don't want to get changed first?" Brendan asked her.

"I'll get prettied up for the reception my parents will demand be thrown. Right now, we're just filling out the paperwork, I don't need fancy clothes for that," she shot back.

This was not at all how he imagined they'd get married. Ron and Hermione had done the traditional Muggle style wedding, Fleur and Bill had gone all out, in the middle of a war no less, he'd expected his and Ginny's wedding to be done properly, with her walking down the aisle to him in a white dress and all their friends and family to witness it.

He wanted something normal!

She was supposed to fret over meaningless details and complain about her mum taking it over, and instead she just wanted to head to the Ministry at 11pm on a Friday evening and draw up paperwork when she was covered in soot, wearing pyjamas and his trainers, and he still had blood on him from when he'd been injured.

He couldn't even carry her over a threshold for another 24 hours!

Ginny was already getting a handful of Floo powder out of the pot above the mantle.

"Can't this at least wait until morning?" he protested. "You're angry, I get that, but I don't anticipate getting injured in the next 24 hours, unless you're going to be the one to do it."

"So, you don't want to get married?"

"Right this second? No. I want to take my potion and go to sleep." She opened her mouth and he cut her off. "You've turned me down three times, I think that's earned me the right to delay our Ministry office wedding by a day or two!"

They glared at each other for five full seconds before she dropped her handful of Floo powder back in the container and set it back on the mantle. Then she crossed her arms slowly and took stock of him. His shirt was ripped, his forehead was clammy, there were blood stains that had run from his side down his shirt and trousers. He must have looked terrible.

But she'd seen him looking worse too.

He could only imagine what the clerk at the Ministry would think if the two of them showed up in their current states and asked for a marriage license.

Ginny closed her eyes and her body relaxed, he could hear her letting out a breath from across the room. "Fine," she said with a forced calm and gritted teeth. "I'm going to bed."

With that she stalked passed him and into the bathroom, closing the door.

"Well, that was interesting," Brendan piped up, trying to break the tension. "Hey, at least she kept the ring on."

Harry just shook his head at him and held his hand out for Brendan to help him to his feet, then he started hobbling his way towards the bedroom.

Brendan let himself out and Harry started getting changed, which was difficult since he couldn't pull his shirt up over his head. Ginny came out of the bathroom in time to help him with it.

"You scared me," she admitted quietly after she'd gotten his shirt off.

He was looking down at her and saw her staring at his chest, bottom lip protruding slightly and her chin was tensed because she was trying to stop herself from getting emotional. It broke his heart a little every time he upset her like this.

"I'm sorry." He wrapped his arms around her and rested his head on top of hers. "I swear, I'll change my emergency contact to you."

"I know," she whispered and kissed his chest.

"Promise you won't change your contact to Luna?"

He felt her smile against his skin. "No," she joked.

Harry pulled back and encouraged her to tilt her head up so he could give her a kiss. Then he took her hand that bore the ring. He'd wanted to see this ring on her finger for so long. "Are you really ready?"

"Yes."

"No more delays?"

"None," she shook her head. "You've been so patient with me while I tried to get my career sorted and I don't want to put this on hold anymore." She kissed him once more. "I know that we're going to be together forever, but I guess I didn't realize how much getting married mattered until I was standing there with the Welcome Witch basically telling me to bugger off because we aren't related."

"I'm sure she didn't say that."

"It certainly felt like it at the time."

He started guiding her towards the bed so they could lay down. "And we'll discuss your elopement idea in the morning?"

"Yes," she sighed in self-reproach.

"Good, because I'm bloody knackered."

She helped get in into bed and handed him his potion. He drank it while she cast another cleansing charm on him to help cool him down.

()()()

Ginny kept her ear open for any sounds of movement in the bedroom.

The potion he'd taken last night had knocked him out hard. He'd fallen asleep in a matter of seconds and been snoring softly ever since.

She'd been too restless to sleep.

Maybe she had been overreacting by demanding that they go to the Ministry in the middle of the night and get married, but she'd just been so scared and angry, and relieved that he was alright.

And she wasn't taking the ring off.

It hadn't been even remotely romantic the way she'd just demanded that they get married then and there; Each time Harry had proposed to her he'd put thought into it. The first time he'd got the ring, the proposal had been a surprise and not over the top, and it had been a lovely surprise. The second time it was after she'd made first string and he'd been entirely cheesy and made a dinner for them to enjoy on the roof, there had been champagne and flowers. The third time had been a little less over the top, but still it had been sweet, he'd taken her to the botanical gardens and got down on one knee.

Every time she'd told him why she wasn't ready and she'd see this light in his eye dampen and felt horrible about making him sad.

She'd worried that he might leave her after each time she'd said 'not yet'.

Her 'proposal' last night had been more of an ultimatum than a proposal, and that wasn't fair to him.

She'd lain awake in bed thinking about it and how off her rocker Brendan Jamison must have thought she was.

Harry deserved better than a 'marry me, or else' type proposal.

She'd gotten out of bed after two hours last night, having given up on trying to get comfortable, and went to her crafts box, the box that held an assortment of hobby opportunities pertaining to the arts; paint and brushes, twine, epoxy, plaster, clay, a jumble of beads and tissue paper. She didn't know why she kept acquiring all these things, she never did anything with them.

Last night, well, this morning really, she started doing something with them. She'd spent an hour attempting to make a Celtic braided ring out of thin wire that would hold two plastic gems in it.

It wound up looking terrible, and it was very likely that it wouldn't fit his finger, but it was supposed to be the thought that counted.

After that she'd lain down on the couch and started to feel sleepy, so she set a Tempus alarm to go off at seven in the morning so that she could start making breakfast for him. This was the gesture that he would actually appreciate, the ring he would likely just laugh at, but that was okay. She owed it to him to make him laugh today.

Two small pancakes each, two pieces of bacon, scrambled eggs, buttered toast, orange juice and coffee, she set it all out on a tray and topped that off with a transfigured lily that had the ring resting around the stem.

Ginny felt nervous. She knew what his answer was going to be, but still; she felt like this was silly and all of her effort to apologize and propose properly was just ridiculous.

Still, she persevered.

"Good morning," she announced to him delicately as she stood beside the bed.

He groaned, gave a stretch and rubbed his face, letting out a big yawn before opening his eyes and seeing that she had been standing there with breakfast in hand. "Oh," he grinned and sat up, moving more abruptly than he probably should have considering his injury, but he wasn't wincing, so that was good.

"Awe, you topped it off with a flower for me, how sweet," he said, picking up the flower. The ring fell into his hand when he did it.

Ginny hadn't expected him to do that, and quickly dropped to one knee.

She dropped too hard and too fast actually, it put her off balance and she fell over, then quickly got back up onto one knee and stared at him.

"Are you okay?" he laughed.

"Er, yeah. I'm just, I'm trying to… bugger, how have you done this three times already?" she grumbled under her breath.

Harry raised an eyebrow at her, then looked down at how she was kneeling, then looked at the ring in his hand and once more back at her face and the probably anxious expression that she was wearing.

She took another breath.

"Harry," she started. "I love you. I've always loved you. And I'm so grateful that you've been so patient and stuck by me. You put up with all my stubbornness and still want to be with me, and that amazes me because I know there is probably someone else out there that wouldn't exasperate you as much as I do, but I also know that I would never trust anyone else to care for you like I do either. And I want to spend the rest of my life caring for you. So, will you marry me?"

Harry was grinning even wider at her now. He held up the ring. "Did you make this for me?"

She nodded, blinking a few times. "Last night, yeah."

"And you made all this breakfast for me too?"

She didn't know why she was blushing, but she felt the heat on her cheeks. "I was trying to make it special."

"It is," he assured her. To prove this he took a bite out of the bacon and started chewing it.

Meanwhile, she was still kneeling on the floor and waiting for his answer.

"Er, is that a yes?" she asked him.

"I'm changing my emergency contact information today."

That's it? she wondered. "O-okay, but what about-"

"And you're wearing a white dress for the wedding, and we will have our family and friends around." He took a sip of the coffee. When he placed his cup back down, he picked up the ring, smiling at it and shaking his head. "As cute as this is, I think I might need something with a little more structural integrity if it's going to last the rest of my life."

Ginny let her head fall back with exasperation. "Will you just say 'yes' so I can kiss you and sit down so we can talk about the details?"

Harry laughed at her. "Yes, Ginny, of course I'll marry you."

"Good."

She stood up, gave him a kiss while at the same time taking a piece of bacon off of her plate and then walked around the other side of the bed so she could sit down beside him, and they could plan their wedding.

()()()

AN- As I mentioned in the first AN, this marks chapter 100 for my One-Shot Compilation. I've got a lot of longer stories that I've been putting on the backburner that I am eager to complete, so I won't be posting to this for a bit (Approx. 2 months... maybe).

I've still got my ever growing pile of prompt requests though and feel free to keep adding to that pile. I'll get through them all eventually :)