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.

121. Clutter and Bad Management

AN- another Iwik prompt about Harry working with the Dark Arts and Hinny meeting post-Hogwarts.

()()()

Clutter and Bad Management Brought Them Together

()()()

Ginny watched as her boss's face grew redder and redder as he yelled at them; it was his morning ritual on Mondays. He'd received the report from the higher ups at the Ministry of their past weeks performance.

She'd had such hopes when she left Hogwarts. She was going to try out to be a professional Quidditch player or get a really cool job working with magical beasts like her brother Charlie.

Neither of those things happened.

She'd needed money and this was the first place that hired her. Now she'd been stuck working the counter at the Registrar's office at the Ministry for four years and was constantly getting yelled at by people coming by to get licenses for things or disputing claims that they had with their neighbors or about breaking the Statute of Secrecy. All that on top of the constant belittlement from her boss and his superiors, plus there was Jeremy that sat two desks away behind her that was constantly looking at her bum and asking probing questions about what she was going to be up to that weekend, the letch.

Ginny hated it here. She hated working the Registrars desk, she hated her boss, Higgins, she hated Jeremy and his creepy stare, she hated the bloody Ministry all together.

In this weekly meeting Higgins always called on one person and asked them to explain why their paperwork wasn't done correctly or why they had the same person at their desk for over twenty minutes, slowing down the amount of paperwork that could have gotten done rather than 'gibber-jabbering' with whomever it was that was occupying their time.

Thank Merlin it wasn't her turn to be called on. This past weekend she'd found out that another one of her school friends was getting a promotion at work, plus her eldest brother announced that he and the wife were expecting another child, five different people at the family lunch yesterday had asked if she was seeing anyone (the answer was 'no') and she had not had nearly enough coffee to tolerate being singled out just then.

It was Hortencia's turn to get called out; the woman was an institution in this department and she wasn't bothered at all by getting called out. In fact, her response to Higgins asking her why her line had moved so slow last week had been to ever so slowly lift her cup of tea to her lips and delicately blow the steam away before taking a sip, then say 'Oh, you know, when you get to my age,' and give him a polite smile. Hortencia was a master bull-shitter and the only reason Ginny had managed to stick around for as long as she had.

The rest of the group fought back a smile as they waited for the vein in Higgins forehead to pop. He threw the report on the conference room table and stalked out of the room then, muttering under his breath about incompetence.

The rest of them gave Hortencia a slow clap.

"I wish I had the spine you do," Ginny told her as they took their seats along the counter five minutes before the door would automatically unlock and let the parade of obstinate complainers in.

"Oh dear, you've got plenty of spine. Problem is, you've got too much empathy and have yet to figure out your passion."

"Too much empathy is a problem?"

"It is in this line of work. You listen for far too long when they get to whinging, and you haven't said anything to Jeremy to get him to stop leering at you. On top of that, you take to heart what that tool of a boss we have says about your performance." She reached over and patted Ginny on the shoulder. "Darling, I've been doing this job for longer than you've been alive. At some point, you're going to have to start speaking your mind and not give a toss what happens next. You're a ginger, I know it's in you somewhere."

Ginny huffed a laugh. "Oh, I know it's in me too. Problem is, when I go off, and I can, I'm bound to get carried away and bury myself in too deep because of it."

"You're worried you might get laid off?" Hortencia chuckled. "You're young, you can find another job."

"Not without a good reference!"

The older woman let out an even louder laugh then. "You think that man would ever give anyone a good reference?"

She had a point, Ginny thought, then the bell chimed to indicate the doors were now open and a throng of people came in, all struggling to be the first to the front of the line.

The people she had to deal with that morning weren't too bad, not until near mid-morning when some snooty woman demanded to have the property lines on her estate handed over immediately and Ginny had to explain the process, getting cut off several times and needing to start again. The woman was there for so long that Higgins came out of his office and stood just in her eyeline and started tapping his watch, telling her it was taking too long.

"You would probably prefer to talk to my supervisor, wouldn't you?" Ginny offered the woman, wanting very much for this to be Higgins problem.

"No. I want you to do your job, not have someone else do it for you. Your generation is such a lazy bunch of lay abouts."

Ginny didn't miss the smirk on Higgins face when he heard that. Then Jeremy rolled his chair back so that he could stare at what was going on too.

"As I've said, there is a process to getting the records out of archive. If it really is a family estate, do you not have a copy of this at home? Otherwise you'll have to wait due to the backlog of other persons also waiting for paperwork like this," she tried again.

"You've already said that!" the woman yelled at her.

"I know I've already said it!" Ginny yelled back. "I've said it four bloody times and still you haven't gotten it through your thick skull. Do you expect that we've just got property inspections sitting at our desk from a millennia ago when you were born? No! It's buried somewhere in a woefully unmanageable crypt that'll take ages to sift through. You said it was your father that had it done so it'll probably be the mummified paper brick at the bottom in the farthest reaching corner. So fill out the bloody form to have someone excavate for it or fill out the form to have another property inspector come out because if you think I want to spend one more minute talking in circles with you that you're wrong! I might not be ancient like you but I do know how to perform my job; standing here and taking your abuse is the main part of it, the other is convincing you to jump through these fucking stupid Ministry hurdles!" She then threw the two forms at her. "Take these and fill them both out if you like, maybe if you aren't such a bitch to whomever you turn them in to you'll still be alive when one or the other of them get dealt with."

The woman stood there in shock for a moment while Ginny glared at her, daring her to say something more. Then she continued glaring at her as the woman's eyes started glistening with unshed tears before she took both forms and bowed her head before leaving.

"Weasley," Higgins called out.

Ginny heard her surname perfectly, because the entire room had gone completely silent.

She ignored him.

"Next," she called out to the line in front of her through clenched teeth.

"Weasley."

"NEXT," she called out again, as no one had come forward to her desk.

Higgins stomped over to her and she stood up quickly to turn around and face him before he got too close. He froze mid-stride when he was still five feet away.

"Yes?" she asked maliciously. "Problem with how swiftly I can make someone at my desk bugger off? Isn't that all you're interested in?"

"There's a proper way to do it."

"Would that involve you standing off to the side and tapping your watch incessantly?"

"I was simply trying to-"

"You were simply trying to be a prick, and don't worry, you've got that down. If you really wanted to assist us out here then you'd jump on a desk when it's busy so you can sit through being forced to pleasantly repeat yourself like an automaton to crotchety witches and wizards who can't fathom why it takes so long to get anything done around here. And I've the answer to that," she turned to the crowd behind her. "Him," she pointed at her boss, "he's the reason nothing gets done around here. He does fuck all in his office and the only time he talks to us is to scream at us on Monday mornings that we don't get things done fast enough."

She turned back around and pulled out her accordion folder of forms and put them on the counter. "Here's how to get things done fast." She then kicked off the heeled shoes she had been told were part of the dress code and jumped over the counter, then picked up her accordion folder and went to the first person in line. "What are you here for?"

"Er, renewing my travel permit," the lanky man said.

Ginny reached into the folder and pulled out a form. "Fill this out and go up to the Transportation office. Give them the original copy of your current one and then wait six weeks. Or, you can go to the Senior Undersecretary and have her fast track it by getting her a trinket with a kitten on it and compliment her hair. Then you'll have a new one by the end of the day."

She moved onto the next person in line, then the next and kept handing them the correct forms and telling them the quickest way to get them dealt with, and threatening to take back the forms if they talked too much.

Five minutes later and the room was empty save for the employees and a young man just inside the doorway that claimed he was simply there for 'the show'.

"There, Higgins. Does that make up for the ten minutes I was stuck listening to that old bitch complain about due process? I've even made it so that you don't have to pretend like you do anything in that office of yours."

He was red in the face and the vein in his forehead was noticeably throbbing again. "Do it like that again and we'll all be out of a job. You need to remain professional!"

"I tried being professional and it wasn't good enough for you! And what do you know about professionalism? You only come out of your office when you want to ridicule us, you smell like scotch all the time and you let Jeremy do nothing but eyeball me all day." She turned to Jeremy then. "Stop staring at me! I don't like you, I've never liked you, it's not going to happen."

"That's it!" Higgins roared. "You're fired."

"GOOD!" She stomped back over to him and chucked the accordion folder at his face, nailing him dead on the nose with it. "See if you can figure out what the hell those forms are for." She then reached over the counter and grabbed her purse then turned and headed for the door. "And you can keep the shoes. I only have those stupid heels for this office anyway."

Her whole body was still vibrating when she got down the hall and reached the lifts. The doors dinged open and she weaved her way back to the far corner, needing desperately to rest her back against something so she could continue staying upright.

She was breathing hard.

She'd just quit her job.

No, she got fired, but really, it worked out to be the same thing.

She was feeling warm all over, and not in a good way.

And now she was dizzy from breathing too hard.

"That was far more entertainment than I expected to receive by coming here today," said a low voice beside her.

Ginny flinched, not expecting anyone to be willing to talk to the crazy girl that didn't have any shoes on. She looked up at him and recognized he was the man that had simply been in the office to witness 'the show'.

She rested her head back and closed her eyes waiting for her light-headedness to pass. "Yeah, we're a real riot when one of us snaps."

"I suspect the monotony can get to be too much."

"Not for everyone. The lady that works beside me revels in being the one to keep a level head while everyone else slowly losing theirs."

"Worked," he said.

"Pardon?"

"You said she 'works' beside you, but now she 'worked' beside you. Because you just got fired."

Her face scrunched up with regret. "I just got fired!" she moaned. "Shit. Well, at least I get a severance package."

"Is it going to amount to anything?"

"Four years of work, one week for each year. Means I've got a month to get something else figured out before my flatmate needs to find a replacement to help with the rent."

"Four years at that job? I'm surprised you don't already have the spirit sucked out of you."

She chuckled. "No, not yet."

"You should find something more exciting and suited to you for your next job."

"Wouldn't that be nice," she said wryly.

"Here," he handed her a piece of paper that was promoting a job fair.

Ginny took it and looked it over in surprise. "You just happen to have this in your pocket?" She looked up at him again after glancing at the different job stands that were going to be set up. Now she noticed that he wasn't much older than she was, they might even be about the same age. She also couldn't help but notice his crooked smile, which she found endearing, and how gorgeous his eyes were behind his glasses.

"I did."

"And you don't need it?"

He pulled out his jacket so she could see there were more of the same poking out of the inside pocket. "I already know where and when it's happening," he told her cheekily.

In spite of herself, she felt a blush rising to her cheeks. "Thank you," she said quietly and fought back a girlish smile.

The door dinged one stop above the atrium and Ginny looked passed the flyer and down at her feet. "Bugger," she said and dug into her bag.

"Here," he took two more fliers out of his jacket and transfigured them into a pair of flat shoes for her. "They might not be very comfortable, but it will look less strange."

"Thank you," she said again, this time she let the smile stay on her face while she tugged on the shoes.

The door dinged for the Atrium and she started heading out. She was across the threshold when she realized that he wasn't leaving. "Are you continuing down?" The only floor below them was the Department of Mysteries and the Wizengamut.

"Back up actually," he replied. "I've a few forms I need to get."

People started filing past her into the lift and she was gently pushed out of the way, then the doors closed and she was staring at her gilded reflection in the faux gold surface of the lift doors.

He'd taken that lift ride simply to talk to her.

Ginny continued smiling until she got back to her flat. She took off her new pair of transfigured flats and noticed then that he had added a flower design to them. It was an impressive transfiguration. She added them to the shoe rack she and Luna shared and then looked around the flat.

It was still Monday, before noon.

And she didn't have a job.

"Fuck!" she said to herself and the empty room.

()()()

"I can't see you as a sales girl for Herbology Cauldron, or helping witches learn about which Wonder Witch products would work best for them, but I know you could certainly look good in their required outfits. They all seem to require a nice plump bum," Luna said, louder than Ginny would have liked. "You may need to be wearing one of the padded bra's that Wonder Witch carried though, but I suppose that could be part of the selling tactics."

"Luna, I am not going to be selling cosmetics."

"Oh, a talk from Dark Arts experts, that would be very interesting," Luna announced, rushing forward toward the auditorium nearby. Ginny followed along behind her, thinking that perhaps bringing along her best friend and flatmate may have been an unwise choice.

"Can you really picture me working with Dark Arts?" She held up the resumes she'd brought along with her in case at least one out of the hundreds of booths set up around here appealed to her. "There is nothing on here that shows I would be any good at removing hexes or trekking through wherever they trek through to find these objects."

Luna turned her enormous blue eyes on her then and shook her head. "How have we been such good friends for so long and yet you are still so closed minded? Do you think my job is all about discovering new species of animals? It's more about paperwork than anything, and you have a resume full of proof that you are familiar with paperwork."

"Well…. Yes, but I would still be required to do other things and I only received an 'E' in Defence in school."

"We can chalk that up to us all having terrible professors."

Ginny had to give her that one, they'd cycled through several terrible DADA professors during their tenure and the only reason anyone passed their NEWTS was because of the practice study sessions a group of them started up a month before the tests.

"Okay, let's sit in on the talk and see what it's all about then."

"Wonderful! And it's just starting now."

They managed to find seats together near the front, it seemed a lot of people attending didn't want to sit too close, likely because they worried there would be a demonstration of some sort, something Ginny worried too.

"Ladies and Gentleman, thank you for joining us today," a tall and perfectly groomed man announced to start off the session. "And thank you to the Wyllt Emrys Collegiate for allowing this event to take place at their conveniently located campus. Now, tell me, when you hear of the Dark Art Experts, what comes to mind?"

"Death Eaters," someone called out.

"Grindelwald."

"Knocturn Alley." People had a chuckle at that.

"Xenophobes," Luna called out.

"Treasure hunters," Ginny called and chuckled.

"Who said treasure hunters?" the man asked and looked in their direction. Ginny raised her hand. "You are quite correct in calling them that." He tossed a small metal object at her and she caught it. "And you've a good eye." Ginny turned it over in her hand and saw it was a metal business card holder.

"Now I just need business card to put in this," she muttered to Luna.

"The number one client of most Dark Arts Experts is Gringotts, and as we all know Gringotts is more than a bank, they love searching out and finding treasure. Now, who wants to meet a few of the top Dark Arts Experts that our country has to offer?"

The crowd gave a cheer and clapped, then the man gestured for the side door to be opened by the young person standing there and four men walked out, each looking like there was a decade between them, the youngest of which came out last and was the entire reason why she was here today.

"That's him!" Ginny told Luna. "The last one with the messy, black hair, he's the guy that gave me the shoes and the flyer."

"I can see why you find him attractive," Luna said, leaning forward in her seat to get a better look at him.

Ginny pursed her lips, she'd never said she found him attractive, Luna had simply inferred it.

His name plate read 'Harry Potter-D.A. Ltd'.

The man acting as facilitator started asking the four on the panel about the most interesting event they'd come across in their profession so far and they were all wild stories similar to the one's that Ginny had heard from her brother that worked as a Curse Breaker at Gringotts.

The facilitator then asked what the most difficult part of their job was, this time starting with Harry Potter, who first looked over to her before opening his mouth and saying two words that shocked her; 'Ministry paperwork'.

"I think you might be very wrong about how relevant your resume is to this profession," Luna told her.

Ginny would have given her some form of acknowledgment, but she was still eye-locked with Harry Potter, who had now cast a subtle wink in her direction before then blinking as if to cover it up and turning his eyes elsewhere.

The other three on the panel were in complete agreement with the first answer to that question as well. According to the most senior man on the end, he could sit about in front of a cursed object all day and enjoy the challenge of uncovering its secrets, but applying for the permits to get the job done was a day to a week all to itself.

The facilitator was quick to switch the questioning back to making the job sound like a non-stop thrill ride so he didn't lose anyone in the lecture hall with the mundane. But Ginny knew the mundane backwards and forwards; she knew how to get the paperwork done right and she knew who to send it to or bribe to get it taken care of.

The talk went on for another twenty minutes before they were all thanked for coming.

"I could work for one of them," she whispered to Luna as they stood up and started shuffling towards the middle row. "If they even have a position open for dealing with all the Ministry related things."

"I think there's one person for sure that does, and he took every opportunity he had to look over at you."

Ginny felt her cheeks warm.

They had nearly reached the middle when their path was blocked by none other than Harry Potter himself. "Can I speak to you?" he asked Ginny over Luna's head, he was half a foot taller than both of them.

"Of course you can," Luna answered for her and bypassed him to head out with everyone else.

Ginny stood there, waiting for him to say something, though it was clear that he was waiting for more people to file out so they wouldn't be overheard.

"It's nice to see that you came," he started.

"Well, I haven't got that much to fill my days with at the moment," she joked.

"Any of the booths hold an interest for you?"

"No, not really. I've handed my CV out to a few of them, but truth be told, this session here was the most interested I've been. Though I don't know how well I would do with Dark Artifacts and such, I had really lousy professors in school."

"Yes, Hogwarts does not have a good reputation for popping out capable students in that regard," he agreed. There was a hint of a snarl on his face when he said that, like it was a personal affront to him. "As I said up there though, the hardest part of the job isn't dealing with the dark artifacts or removing curses or anything of that sort."

"It's the paperwork. Yes, I was listening."

"So, if I had someone that could handle that part for me, and properly, that would ease a lot of the headaches I deal with."

"Are you offering me a job?"

Her question appeared to have pleased him. "I believe you'll need to apply for it first."

She quickly reached into her bag and handed over her resume.

"It appears you are perfectly capable to handle the position." He said this, but he didn't even look at the piece of paper she'd given him, he was still only looking at her.

It was unnerving and flattering all at once the way his eyes lingered.

"Here's the part where you start asking about wages and office hours," he prompted her.

"And expectations," she added.

The light of intrigue in his eye was not lost on her. While she may have found him attractive, she was here to get a job, not a date.

"What I mean is, I've just come from a job where my boss did nothing but yell at me, likely because he was incapable of doing the job I did so well. I won't tolerate being yelled at. If I tell you that a certain permit takes a week for processing and approval, I don't want you screaming at me that it should be getting done faster than that."

"You can get a permit approved in a week?" he asked, impressed. "Alright, well, I promise not to yell at you, but I do reserve the right to inquire about status of things if they take more than two weeks."

"What kind of dress code do you have?"

"Unless we have someone coming by the office, which is all by appointment, and scheduling would be part of your job as well, then you can wear whatever you want. If someone is coming in, or if you need to go into the Ministry and represent the company, then I would prefer you wear something professional."

"A very reasonable request."

"Now do you want to know about wages?"

She grinned. "Alright, what about wages?"

"We'll do the first month at 800 Galleons for the month. The office is a mess right now and if you decide to stay on, you'll realize at one point or another that you were well deserving of it."

800 Galleons a month! That was double what she made at her last job!

"After the first month it'll get easier and you won't need as much elbow grease, so consider the extra 100 a signing bonus and you'll be making 700 a month salary after that. Not including bonus' at the end of the year."

Ginny gaped at him. "Just how much business do you do?"

"I get hired all over the world and by all kinds of wealthy clientele, I get paid well for what I do. With you there to help me I can put more focus on that rather than shuffling papers; which means I'll have the time to pick up jobs that I've been having to turn down."

Her head was spinning. She'd be making more than her dad at that rate!

"Er, what kind of hours am I expected to be putting in?"

"Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm, the standard office hours. Anyone who needs to get in touch with us outside of those hours can wait. Although, I may ask you to come with me if I have to travel abroad a time or two."

Travel benefits?

"I'll take it! When do you want me to start?" she said eagerly with a smile.

Harry took out his business card and handed it over to her. "Meet me at the office on Monday, I'll show you around and let you decide where you want to get started."

Ginny looked down at the card. He worked out of an office in London, a residential part of London.

A Muggle part of London, if she wasn't mistaken.

()()()

A day and a half off is all she had before she was dressed in her usual work clothes; dress trousers, short heels, and a blouse. She had the shoes he'd transfigured for her in her bag along with her lunch and a notepad and pen for keeping track of all she was responsible for.

Ginny checked the business card again and looked up at the home in front of her.

It could have been a beautiful town house at one point. Right now though it was dilapidated and in desperate need of some care. The windows were covered in grime and the brick had clearly not been washed in years; the London smog had a noticeable effect, even on dark brick. The little patch of earth in front of the house should have been a garden, like those around it, but it was covered in weeds.

Her mother would not have been impressed.

"Ginny," Harry opened the door before she'd gotten up the last step. "Good, you're right on time. Come on in, I'll show you the work areas and let you get started." He stepped back and held the door open for her.

The inside was reflective of the outside; crowded and in a state of disrepair.

"You bring your clients in here?"

"Merlin, no. This place is a mess. I go out and meet them somewhere for a meal or something."

There was a smell in the air that she couldn't identify, and there were bankers boxes everywhere and books stacked all around.

"Do you live here?"

"Yes. I live upstairs, but you'll just be operating on the main floor, that's where all the work gets done."

"Potter, this place is a whole."

"I know," he gave her a crooked grin. "That's why I need the help."

"And a house elf."

"I used to have one, he was useless, hated me. I came home one day and he'd decapitated himself in the kitchen."

Her bag fell to the floor as her arms went limp in shock.

"He was ancient," Harry said as thought that was excuse enough. "He'd been my godfather's mother's elf and after twenty years of missing 'his mistress' he'd had enough. He didn't clean or cook or have anything nice to say. And I got rid of the table that he, you know, did it at." His hand went to the back of his neck and his lips scrunched up like he knew he'd just given her more information than he'd intended to.

A shiver ran through her body, but she overcame it. "And so before anything, you need me to sort out your banker boxes full of files?"

"Yeah. See, this mess is why I offered the extra pay for the first month. It's going to be a nightmare going through it all and finding a way to sort it."

"Do you have an account set up anywhere for office supplies?" she asked, noting that he didn't have any filing cabinets and the former sitting room didn't have a bookshelf.

Or a desk.

There were just two uncomfortable sofas sitting across from each other that had incredibly faded cloth.

"I don't, but I guess I can get one set up somewhere. Er, do you have a place in mind?"

Her mind was spinning with thoughts of what she wanted to get rid of first; completely emptying out the room and giving everything a good scrub would have been the first place to start.

"Mr. Potter, this isn't an office, it's a disaster. How long have you been operating like this?"

"Four years, officially. Sort of five," he cringed. "And don't call me Mr. Potter. Harry is fine. Look, you can do what you like with the space. I know it's terrible, you can get all new furniture if you like, just use your best discretion and try not to break the bank."

She looked back at him to gauge how serious he was about that, then looked past him and down the hallway where there was a door open into another room that was also piled high with files.

"Do you have something you need to be doing right now?" she sighed, wanting him out of the way so she could get started.

"Do you not need my assistance with this?" he asked in surprise, probably because it sounded like she was dismissing him, which she was.

"Look, I don't mean to be rude, but obviously you're filing system," she indicated to the stacks of boxes and papers, "is a mess. I'd like to get some of this sorted and in order to do that I need to get started now."

"Well… okay then."

"Great. So… office furniture like filing cabinets and a desk are fine?" she asked for assurance.

"Yes."

"And… what about hiring a house elf from Gringotts for the day?"

"Uh… sure. Just for the main floor though. I don't want anyone, yourself included, going upstairs without my explicit permission."

"I can work with that," she assured him.

"Okay then. Well, I look forward to seeing what you can do. I'll just grab a drink from the kitchen and head upstairs to start working on some correspondence."

Ginny nodded at him and then headed for the back room, her eyes growing wide and the sheer number of boxes and things in the back room. He'd at least put a name and date on the side of each box, they must all be individual cases. That would make filing them away easier. Perhaps a filing cabinet wasn't the right call. Maybe a safety deposit box shelf along one wall would be a better call. Her friend Rose worked in a store that might be able to source one out for them.

Ginny headed back towards the main room just as Harry was coming out of the kitchen.

"Is there a Floo set up through that fireplace?" she pointed into the sitting room.

"Yes. The name for it is '12 Grimmauld'."

"Straightforward. Good. What vault number do you want things charged to?"

He set down his cup and started searching around for a pen. Ginny took one out of her bag and her notepad as well and he wrote it down.

Four hours later she was sitting in the back room and had put every box in chronological order and was now going through each of them and writing out a brief description of what each contained while a House Elf named Tumnus was doing a thorough cleaning of the main room, which was now completely devoid of furniture and ready for the arrival of new office furniture that would be getting delivered any minute now, including the safety deposit wall boxes that would be going in this room.

She hadn't seen Harry since he'd gone upstairs and was slightly concerned about how he would react to the receipts she had for him, though, considering her salary she knew he could afford it.

The boxes she'd been going through were really interesting; he'd taken on cases all over the country and in several other countries as well. His notes were nearly gibberish; lines on the paper were merely suggestions to him. Sometimes it wasn't lined paper or parchment paper at all, it was pages from a book that he'd scribbled his notes on. More often than not the book pages were in relation to the object or room he was working on removing incantations from, sometimes it was a page from a novel though.

"Miss Weezy?" Tumnus interrupted her.

Ginny jumped in surprise at the voice, she'd been very caught up in her work and hadn't heard him draw near. "Yes?"

"The deliveries have come. Can you show me where to put things?"

She beamed, it was always exciting to her to get new things. There hadn't been much she'd ever owned that was brand new, things she had, from clothes to books, were always hand-me-downs. Seeing the sleek, smooth surface of the desk with no scratch marks and the book shelves with no knicks in them, and the chairs with no rips in the fabric seats or backs, it was making her nearly giddy.

"Oh! The safety boxes came too!" she rushed over to it and essentially hugged it. "Everything is going to be so organized!"

There were three of them and each one was fifteen boxes long by ten high and was magically enhanced so that all the files related to a case would fit inside them no problem.

She looked around the very clean room now, even the rugs had been scrubbed until they were like new, and the walls. The previous furniture Tumnus had shrunk down and put in an empty bankers box until Harry told her what to do with it.

They started getting everything in its place and then Tumnus went to start cleaning the kitchen while she started filling up the cubby boxes and breaking down the boxes.

Harry finally made a reappearance around four in the afternoon and Ginny caught him in the hallway, staring into the newly finished reception area.

"This is…" he trailed off.

She grinned at him. It looked spectacular. All the books he'd had laying about were on the bookshelf, all the interesting looking pieces were on display behind her desk. There were a few potted plants around the room also and a seating area to one side plus two chairs opposite her desk.

"Wait until you see the back room! Tumnus just finished cleaning it up. I'm going to see if he can manage to wash down the walls here before we lose him for the day."

Not waiting for a response, she took his hand and pulled him down the cleared hallway to the back room where they now had 450 secure boxes, 110 of them still waiting to be filled, stacked on one wall, the conference table now entirely usable.

"And the kitchen!" she announced. "It was usable before, but now it is simply sparkling!"

Ginny took his hand again and led him back down the hall to the kitchen, which had been covered in a layer of grime before, the standard for a bachelor like him, but wholly unacceptable by her opinion.

"What a difference a house elf can make in a day!" she said proudly. "I was thinking that having Tumnus hired to stop by once a month might be a good call. Particularly since you won't need to meet clients elsewhere now."

"You got all this done in a day?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Yes. And don't worry, I've catalogued nearly all the boxes you'd had and have it all written down what's in each box in the back. There are key's for them if you'd like to keep it all locked up."

He did another look thorough of the kitchen, then wandered out of the kitchen without saying anything and went for the reception area. Ginny followed behind him, hoping desperately that it was all to his liking; she thought the place looked great, and completely professional now.

"I haven't done anything with he front walk, but if you do start receiving clients here and they don't opt for Floo, then we can do something about that."

He didn't appear to be listening to her, he was looking at the display shelving behind her desk and the artifacts on display, spending a little extra time on the Order of Merlin, Second Class that she'd found. She wasn't sure who it had been given to but it was a prestigious award and deserved to be showcased.

Harry then went back down the hall to the conference room and tried pulling on one of the boxes.

"What's in here?" he asked.

She read the number on the box and pulled out her notebook. "I'll make something more official later," she assured him. "Number 214- Catacombs, Paris, France- November 11, 2000," she read off.

She bit her lip and looked up at him from her notebook. His whole demeanor was impossible to read; did he love it, did he hate it? Was he just in shock over what she was capable of doing in a day? He had to know that she wasn't done, there was so much more that needed cataloguing.

"Let me take you out for dinner."

That was not the response she'd been expecting. "Pardon?"

"You've been incredibly busy all day and have accomplished more with this than I could have ever imagined. Let me take you out to dinner."

"But, so, does that mean you like it?"

He grinned at her and shook his head with a chuckle. "I had no idea that you would be able to pull this off so fast! And so well!" He took the notebook out of her hand and started turning the pages. "You've got every case I've ever done recorded on here, dates and all!"

"Well, it's not completely done," she started.

"Ginny, it's day one. Just take the compliment."

"Well, okay," she blushed and grinned at him. "I did push myself a bit, but it felt good to be actually accomplishing something for once. Sitting behind the desk and mindlessly handing out forms for so long, I thought I was hearing my brain cells dying off one by one."

He laughed then, a real laugh.

It was a nice laugh, and it made him look younger.

And more attractive.

"So, where are you taking me for dinner then?" she asked with a grin of her own. "Because I'm starving, I missed lunch because I was so absorbed in all this."

"Then this calls for Italian. I love pasta."

()()()

It took a few weeks to get everything in the files fully cataloged while she was getting adjusted to taking on the responsibilities that her job would actually entail; the owl post, setting meetings, looking into potential clients, Ministry forms (which she had gotten a copy of every form she could ever possibly need from Hortencia).

Even without having the task of documenting all of the previous cases, her days were full up.

She didn't know how Harry managed to run things before she got there; he obviously hadn't had an assistant before, so had he just been letting potential cases and clients fall to the wayside because he was too busy?

At the end of the week he would show up in front of her desk, sometimes it was the only time she saw him that week for longer than five minutes, and he'd ask where they were going for dinner. She was growing to love Friday's not because it meant the weekend was coming, but because it meant that she got the opportunity to spend proper time with him over a meal. His schedule wasn't packed with meetings, but he was usually upstairs (an out of bounds area for her) working on examining whatever dark object he was working on. She was responsible for invoicing the clients too and knew just how much his services were worth.

"I can see now why you're able to give me such a comfortable salary," she teased him over her glass of red wine.

"And take you out to dinner ever Friday on the company dime," he added.

"This isn't a personal expense for you? Am I not worth it?"

His eyes met hers across the table and there was a silence that hung there for a moment. "I suppose they're one in the same. Difference is, if it were considered a personal expense then this wouldn't be a 'work' event we've been having at the end of every week."

No, no it wouldn't. Personal expense could mean that these Friday debriefs were dates, not work events. And they hadn't been dates. Although, she wouldn't have minded that, save for the fact that he was her boss and she loved working for him.

It didn't stop her from having a few dreams and daytime fantasies about the work debriefs turning into her debriefing him.

There was undeniably an attraction between them, but she'd implemented a company policy that meant they couldn't do anything about the attraction. He just didn't know about the policy; because how on earth was she supposed to bring it up without admitting that she fancied him a bit?

"This is quickly turning into the only time in the week that I get to talk to you, so phrase it however you want, I'm just glad you keep agreeing," he told her.

"I plan to continue agreeing," she assured him. "Besides passing along your messages and telling you your schedule, this is the only time I get to chat with you as well." She took another sip of wine. That was enough to satisfy him, as he returned to cutting up his steak. "What do you do for fun?" They'd only ever talked about work and work adjacent things, she had no idea what his personal life was like or how his weekends were spent.

"I spend it mostly with my Muggle friends doing things in their world with them."

That was not at all what she'd expected to hear. "What kinds of things?"

"Football games, going to the pub, there's a thing called laser tag where you get kitted out in a vest with sensors on it and given a, er, pretend wand with a trigger."

"I know what a gun is," she fought back a smile.

"Good, right, so you're given a fake gun and you have to go around a dark room and shoot the others as many times as possible before your time is up. It's great fun and gets the adrenaline going."

"Wow," she leaned back in her chair. "There is so much to you that I had no idea about."

"Why? What did you picture me spending my free time doing?"

"Reading up on Dark Arts and never leaving the second floor," she admitted honestly.

He supplied her with another chance to see that crooked grin of his. "That's what I figured you'd say. But no, when I first got into this line of work it did absorb me. I learned eventually that I needed to have personal time and set hours to get my work done in. Otherwise I'd turn into a crazy person."

"Wise decision."

"What about you?"

"I don't get up to much. I've got my flatmate that you saw at that lecture, she and I hang out doing not much of anything. I regularly get roped into family events though."

"Right, you've got a large one. Youngest of seven and the only girl."

"I never told you that," she said in confusion.

"No, but I do know your surname and I have heard of your father. I've also worked with your eldest brother a few times. He always spoke highly of you, said you were destined for more than working at the Ministry."

She sat up straight then and set her wine glass down. "Did you know who I was that day I had the melt down and got fired?"

"Yes," he admitted without hesitation. "Ours is not so large of a world."

For an inexplicable reason, she felt violated. She hadn't known at all who he was. That didn't seem fair.

"Bill even had a picture of you in his tent. You were probably mid-teens when it was taken. I think it was you and he at the World Cup. You looked adorable with the shamrock on your cheek."

"I can't believe you! Why didn't you say anything?" She wasn't mad necessarily, just surprised.

"What was I supposed to say?" he shrugged. "I sought out to hire you after that display at the registrar's office because you were spirited and clearly knew your way around the system, not because I'd been taken in by the picture of you as a pretty girl in a coworkers photo."

She couldn't argue with that. Her work ethic had been outstanding, if she did say so herself, plus, he'd just admitted that he thought she was pretty. It was the 'pretty' part that had her feeling warm.

After that Friday, the dinners that followed grew less and less about work and more about personal lives and anecdotes. Due to this she was finding herself thinking about him more often than before, which was becoming a distraction; she'd be cataloguing new file boxes that he'd just closed and daydreaming about him coming in, pushing her up against the wall and ravishing her, or coming into the kitchen while she was getting lunch and ravishing her, basically any room she was in, even at home she would picture him bursting into her bedroom. These daydreams were becoming entirely common.

Their interactions other than the Friday dinners were minimal, but ever time she did see him he would give her this smile that she felt was just for her, it made her feel special, then he'd be in a meeting or heading back up the stairs to get his work done.

She'd still never been upstairs and had yet to see him doing his work. The clients were still stopping by and the cases were getting closed, she took care of the invoicing, so she knew he was busy and getting his job done. It would still be interesting to see what exactly the job entailed though.

Three months, two weeks and three days she'd been working at D.A. Ltd when a client name was added to the schedule for a meeting that she not only recognized, but had many unfortunate dealings with through school.

Draco Malfoy.

She wasn't at all surprised he had a Dark Object, likely found in his home. She was surprised that he didn't already have some crotchety old 'family connection' man that was on retainer to deal with them though.

Harry came downstairs and into the kitchen a few minutes before Malfoy was due to arrive.

"Everything set? Like I even have to ask," he joked.

He was always in such good spirits, how was that even possible?

"Yeah, I've got the tea ready and an assortment of cakes for His Royal Highness, the Ponce of Slytherin," she muttered back.

"You know this one then? I've looked into him, you two would have got through a lot of school at the same time."

"Our father's know and hate each other."

"His father is in Azkaban," Harry pointed out. "And has been for several years."

"He didn't go there soon enough not to ingrain in his son that the world owes him everything."

Harry looked amused by this. "Am I going to get to see another Ginny Weasley meltdown?"

She opened her mouth to defend herself once again for her actions that had her fired from the Ministry, but then realized there was a small chance that she'd lose her head because of Malfoy. "Just, let's try and keep him away from me as much as possible, shall we?"

"Right," he said, not sounding convincing, while he took a small square cake off the plate she'd assembled. "I've got a reputation to protect."

"With his family history and links to all the Pureblood fascists out there, he could spread good word of mouth among his peers about your services, peers that will also have their homes, here and abroad, riddled with Dark Arts objects they'd rather not have laying around."

"Always the business first with you," he grinned and shook his head. He still had the little cake half chewed and a crumb of it sticking out of the side of his mouth.

She handed him a napkin. "How are you still such a child?" It did cause her to lose the battle over containing a smile of her own.

"Seriously though, he says anything rude to you or about you and I'll kick him out, okay?"

"Oh, don't make that promise, because he absolutely will."

"Like what?" His eyes travelled over her, as though looking for anything potentially worth mocking.

Ginny turned sideways and put one hand on her hip while resting the other on the counter. "Like how with pure blood like mine it's a waste that I'm at a job instead of already on bedrest with my third child on the way."

"Oh, he's one of the men that thinks a woman's place is in the home."

"No, he's one of the men that thinks any low brow peasant like me is good only for procreation. And I can guarantee you that he'll make some crude mention of that. He always does. The last time I saw him was at the Ministry and he said if I wanted a desk job so badly then I could at least be bent over it and being made use of."

Harry wasn't smiling now, neither did he look angry on her behalf. He looked in a daze from the suggestive nature of the comment.

"Don't worry about it though," she turned back to rearranging the cakes yet again. "I managed to deal with him daily for six years of school, plus his goons. I can force polite for the few minutes I have to interact with him today."

She gave a small jump of surprise when she felt Harry's hand on her waist; he wasn't one to initiate contact, even for a handshake. Looking up at him she couldn't help but notice how dark his eyes were then, nor how close he was standing to her.

"If he says anything I swear I'll set him straight."

"I don't need a protector, Harry."

Now he put his cheeky grin back in place, and she could swear he swayed a bit closer to her. "But what if I want to?"

'Yeah, Ginny, what if he wants to?' her subconscious asked. 'What if Malfoy says something about you being a waste of a fine arse and Harry hexes him over and over again until he grows all sweaty and needs to take off his robes, then drags you into another room and takes full advantage of grabbing at your fine arse?'

"Don't do anything stupid," she said finally, trying to keep her breathing regular.

"I try to carefully think out every option, it's part of my job."

Like putting your hand on my waist, she wondered?

A bell chimed in the hallway, letting them know that Malfoy was about to arrive any moment. Harry took a step back from her and she tried her hardest not to blush as she picked up the tea tray and began walking it to the conference room while he followed behind her out of the kitchen and headed for the reception area.

A small part of her was chastising him for getting her all flustered like that right before a meeting with one of the people she loathed the most. Perhaps Harry thought he was helping somehow but he had only succeeded in making her fancy him even more, and making the idea that anything could happen between them more of a possibility.

She cast a spell over the room to clear it of any dust that might have settled since Tumnus had last been through.

Ginny closed her eyes and begged for strength at the sound of the doorbell chime. She heard Harry open it and greet his new client. But it was a woman's voice that carried down the hall.

"I must say, the house looks marvelous the way you've converted it like this. It was such a depressing sight the last time I was here to visit my dear cousin Sirius."

'Sirius?' Ginny wondered. Harry hadn't mentioned knowing anyone named Sirius, and the only Sirius she could think of was Sirius Black; he'd been the leader of the rebellion against Voldemort alongside Dumbledore a decade ago. Dumbledore had passed away in the fight, but Sirius had lived for another near decade before passing away due to something or other, details were scarce about it.

"We understand he left the house to you, though you are of no blood relation." Now that was Draco Malfoy's voice, and he sounded jilted.

Narcissa Malfoy's maiden name was Black, so that must have been who they were talking about.

"It was my understanding that you came here today to discuss my expertise on dealing with an object you have in one of your many homes," Harry told them in a clipped tone.

"Yes, yes," Mrs. Malfoy dismissed. "Is it just you here?"

Ginny chose that moment to start walking towards them. Mrs. Malfoy noticed her first, her discerning eyes giving a quick appraisal of the dress Ginny had chosen to wear today, it was modest and professional, but also a tad flattering.

The Mal-brat saw her next and the business like scowl he usually sported disappeared and he looked like he'd just been given a new toy to play with and mock. "Weaslette," he greeted her. "So nice to see how far you've come since being, ahem, laid off at the Ministry."

"I didn't realize you were keeping tabs on me," she responded, then turned to Harry. "The room is all set up if you would like to lead them through to discuss their issue."

She passed behind Harry to head towards her desk, it was the furthest path away from either of the Malfoy's.

"If you'll just follow me," Harry led off with Mrs. Malfoy close behind.

Draco Malfoy wasn't quick to follow though. He lingered in the doorway of the reception area, looking around before she felt his eyes land on her. "Cozy situation you've got yourself in."

"It came from doing this thing called 'hard work', I don't suppose you're familiar with it," she replied, not looking up from her list of things left to be accomplished today.

"Shagging the boss yet? He'd be a decent choice for match. His mum was a Mudblood, but his father was as pure as we are, so I'm sure any offspring would be successful."

Ginny clenched her teeth at his casual use of that derogatory name. "Don't you have a meeting you should be in? Or does your mommy still take care of doing everything for you? She doesn't still bathe you, does she? Is that why you're still unmarried when that seems to be the only life goal you have?"

"You were bathed by your mother?" he laughed. "Well, I guess when you grow up in a one roomed barn you haven't got much need for a House Elf, do you?"

"Back to the old reliable already? You must be spending more time in the whore house now instead of sitting around and coming up with new material to throw at us 'common folk' who haven't got several family members, like our fathers, locked up in Azkaban slowly losing their minds."

He sneered at her. "I guess you aren't shagging the boss yet. You wouldn't be as feisty as you still are if you were getting good and fucked regularly."

There was a loud bang and Malfoy was suddenly being suspended in mid-air upside down.

Ginny shot out of her seat and immediately drew her wand and directed it at Harry who was looking up at Malfoy with blind fury. "Ha- Mr. Potter! That was unnecessary!" She redirected her wand and cast the counter curse, enjoying the sound that Malfoy made when he crashed to the floor.

Malfoy got to his feet with a flurry of swishing fabric as he tried to straighten out his robes. "Neanderthals, the both of you!"

"What is going on?" Mrs. Malfoy came into the room. "Draco, are you alright?"

"I apologize," Harry said insincerely. "I've grown accustomed to using my wand rather than my words. It was instinct to silence him with a childish hex rather than call him out for besmirching my mother and my executive assistant. Perhaps you should be taking your business elsewhere that is more adept at dealing with man-children that were raised by House Elves they were taught to disrespect from infancy."

"One day," Draco growled at her. "One day you'll come begging for my attentions."

"I'd rather snap my wand and live as a Muggle vagrant," she told him pleasantly. It was easy to be amused now that he was so disheveled.

"Out," Harry growled at him.

After he closed the door on them she chuckled to herself and went to get the tea and cakes from the conference room. "Now you know it isn't just a Weasley thing to so easily hate them," she called over her shoulder. "That Draco Malfoy is a class one, grade A arsehole; always has been, always will be. The fact that he thinks anyone of substance would pretend to fancy him simply for his money is proof enough of that."

She turned around to head back to the kitchen with the tea tray and found Harry in the doorway staring at her. He still looked angry.

"I'm sorry you lost a client, but you know you are busy enough as is," she pointed out.

"I don't care about losing them as a client. And I certainly didn't like that he brought his mother with him when this meeting was set up for just the two of us. If I'd known that she was going to be here I never would have agreed."

"There's history between the two of you." She had inferred as much.

"She's tried a few times to contest the will of my Godfather to get this house and access to his vaults. Sirius was smart enough to lay it out very clearly that all his possessions were to be passed down to me and that neither Narcissa, nor Bellatrix Black, or whatever their new surname was, were to be able to lay a finger on any of it."

"Sirius Black was a great man." She remembered meeting him once in Diagon Alley, he'd stopped to say hello to her father and gave her a candy from his pocket.

Harry cast a look upwards. "Yeah, he knew it too, which was annoying."

Ginny chuckled. "I've had my fair share of being raised around 'annoying'. I promise you, if we start swapping stories, I'll win." She started towards the kitchen and simply raised her eyebrow at him until he moved out of the doorway and let her pass. "Nice choice of spell by the way. It was just infantilizing enough to bring him down a few pegs."

Harry followed her to the kitchen. "I've always wanted to try that one, never had the opportunity before. I notice that you already knew the counter spell."

"I've used that one a few times and had it used on me a few times too."

"Maliciously?"

"No, my twin brothers love a good prank."

"I wish I grew up in a big family."

"Even though you didn't, I'm glad you aren't a pompous brat like that other only-child that was just in here."

"If his parents were so intent on having more purebloods out in the world, why only have one child?"

Ginny tried to muffle her snort of laughter. "Probably because sex is what leads to babies and they couldn't let anyone think that they enjoyed that sort of thing."

Harry didn't appear to agree with her on that. "The younger Malfoy didn't appear to have any problem bringing it up."

"Yes, well, he hasn't got any class."

"Nor does he have a way with the ladies."

The swagger with which Harry said that did get a laugh out of her. She put the items on the tray away and turned to head back to her desk. Then found herself once more with Harry's arm around her waist, this time it was wrapped around her front to stop her from leaving.

"Seriously though, are you alright?"

Again, they were so close now that she could feel the heat from his body and smell the soap he used when he showered.

Damn him for being so tempting!

"Like I said, I've been able to tolerate him for years, today went exactly how I expected it to. Minus the part where you were the one to hex him instead of me," she added.

He said nothing, he just continued holding her there with one arm and looking into her eyes while she tried desperately to regulate her breathing.

Merlin, did she ever just want him to pull her closer, bring his other hand to the back of her head and start snogging her passionately.

The daydreams of him doing something like that had been occurring so regularly that slipping into another one while he was right in front of her was apparently just the course her brain took naturally.

She pictured it perfectly how his eyes would slip down to her lips and he'd lean forward without realizing until his lips were on hers and his arm would slip around behind her back as he brought her closer. And of course she would be kissing him back immediately.

Her whole body gave a jerk back after a moment and she realized that it hadn't been a daydream at all. His arm really was around her back now, his other hand really was in her hair and he really had just kissed her, and she'd kissed him back.

Harry made to back away from her, but she grabbed onto the front of his robes to stop him.

"You kissed me," she said stupidly.

"Sorry. I shouldn't-"

"Stop," she cut him off. "You. You actually just kissed me."

"I know, and I shouldn't have."

"No," she shook her head and stopped him once again as he made to back away from her once more. "That's not what I mean. I just, I'd been picturing it so often that I didn't realize that this time it was real."

"You've… what? So, you're okay with it?"

A grin started breaking out over her face. "Do it again."

He was quick to do just that and this time she paid better attention to the reality of the situation. He still tasted slightly of cake and his hair was much more smooth than she had imagined. Everything about it was setting her body on fire, particularly when he walked her back so she was stuck right between him and the counter, and the way he was pressed against her harder now that there was resistance behind her.

His lips started trailing down her neck after a few minutes and she leaned her head back to give him more access. When he got to her collar she let out this sound that she couldn't define and felt a shockwave run through her at his response to the sound being him thrusting slightly against her and his lips clamping once more down on her own.

They kept on carrying on like that until her brain had successfully turned to mush, then the sound of the hall clock chiming the hour met their ears and he pulled back, breathing just as hard as she was.

That was the better part of an hour that they'd been carrying on in the kitchen like a pair of randy teenagers. His lips were swollen, likely just as her own were, and his hair was in more disarray than ever. It looked good on him, mostly because she was responsible for making him look that way.

"This is by far the best way to spend company time," he told her.

"Absolutely."

He looked back down at her lips and she too was fighting the urge to just start all over again until the clock chimed once more.

"I don't know about you, but I do have actual work I need to be getting done," she grinned.

"Why? Is your boss a hard ass?"

"From what I've just felt, a bit," she winked. "Though, he might not be upset about me occupying myself otherwise right now, he will if he doesn't have the permit's he needs for the Ireland site by Monday next week."

"Oh bugger," he sighed. "Yes, we do need those. Damn you for running things so well around here."

"I'd say sorry, but I'm not."

He took a step back from her. "Alright, if I keep hanging around you neither of us is going to get any work done. I'm going to head upstairs and we'll talk at the end of the day, yeah?"

"Yeah."

They both headed for the door at the same time and stopped after two steps because otherwise they'd be trying to get through the doorway at the exact same time.

"I'm going to get myself a cup of tea," she decided and turned back to the counter.

She heard his low chuckle before the door closed.

The tea tasted more flavorful today than she remembered it being.

()()()

Ginny wasn't sure how she and Harry were supposed to behave around each other after the incident in the kitchen.

Luckily, she didn't have to work hard on figuring that part out; Harry was behaving akin to a happy puppy for the few minutes that they interacted during their workdays; big smiles when he saw her, greeting her with a kiss and saying goodbye the same way. It was like she had fallen directly into the girlfriend role with no preamble; it was a nice change from her previous relationships where it took ages to figure out if they were an item or simply dating.

They hadn't talked about it at all by the time Friday rolled around, which was their weekly 'work' dinner. They needed to though, so instead of going out for food, she ordered take away and had it ready in the kitchen by the time he came downstairs, freshly showered.

"Well, that's just not fair!" she complained. "You've got a shower and a change of clothes here, meanwhile I've been schlepping through the Ministry getting approvals on permits most of the day and sorting out the last two jobs, which were disgusting, by the way, and putting them into their boxes."

"You're using Yiddish, it must have been a trying day," he teased and pulled her close for a kiss, then buried his nose in her hair. "You still smell wonderful."

Damn him for being so disarming.

"What do you feel like for food today?"

"We're staying in," she announced and took him by the hand into the kitchen where they each had a box of Thai take-away. "I'd rather not get caught tonguing my boss before we've had a chance to talk about this."

"We need to talk about this? What is there to say?"

"Uh, let's start with the basic," she said, sitting down. "I don't share."

"What? When have I ever taken food off your plate?"

He said that with such confusion that she laughed. "No, you idiot. I mean you! I don't know if you see other women in the evening or on the weekends, but I consider that cheating, and I don't like cheaters."

"I'm not seeing anyone else!" he defended. "I thought that was obvious."

"Well, it wasn't, so I felt it was important to tell you that."

"Alright, well, in that case you aren't seeing anyone else either, right?"

"No, I'm not."

"Okay then," he nodded awkwardly. "That's settled."

"Good." She took a bite of her food, immediately wishing she'd chosen something that wasn't akin to spaghetti, because the noodles slapped against her chin as she tried to get them all in her mouth, and that couldn't look attractive.

"Anything else?" he grinned at her struggle.

She swallowed down what she had in her mouth. "Yes, what, if anything, changes by us going from a work relationship to… something else?"

"Preferably I'll get to see you more outside of office hours."

"You mean like taking me to play laser tag?" she asked in jest.

His eyes lit up at the suggestion. "Do you want to try it?" he asked eagerly.

It was clear that he wasn't joking. "Oh! Well, I guess I could. I don't know how good I'll be."

"It doesn't matter," he assured her. "You can pick it up easy enough."

Ginny laughed. "Okay, I'll try laser tag."

"Great. Other than that, I guess I just assumed that we'd keep seeing how things went, you know, naturally."

"Okay," she dragging out the word because that wasn't much of an answer. "So, during work hours, particularly when clients are here, we keep it professional."

"When clients are here, yes. When they aren't, we still get our work done, I can't imagine you throwing any of that to the wayside simply because you're involved with your boss," he winked.

"We need to have a little firmer rules than that. This is still new and you can be a big distraction. We spent nearly an hour snogging in this kitchen the other day and I almost missed the cut of on getting an application in for your access to that site in Ireland next week."

He took a bit out of his salad roll and grinned. "I would have been worth it."

Ginny was having a hard time keeping this conversation on track and him being so carefree and happy about it all wasn't helping. She didn't want to get exasperated though, it was a bad color on her. Then again, she also didn't want to nag at him when they were only a few days into their new relationship and start repeatedly asking him to 'define the relationship'.

"How about this, I'll leave it alone and we'll just see how things go if you can tell me how you'd introduce me to your Muggle friends."

"You can find out tonight if you'd like," he said as he struggled to hold onto the second half of his salad roll with his chopsticks.

She sat up straight. She hadn't interacted with Muggles much, she'd taken Muggle Studies in school and gotten an 'O' on her NEWTS, but none of her assignments had involved talking to them. That sounded much more exciting than laser tag! "Really? You'd have me meet them? What if I say the wrong thing? What do you normally talk about with them?"

He reached across the table and pulled her hand to his lips, kissing her palm. "You'd do fine, you're smart enough not to give us away. We normally just talk about work… and women."

She looked down at her clothes. "Am I dressed alright for it?"

One snog session after dinner and an hour later and Harry was leading her by the hand into the pub that he frequented a few streets over from his house. Ginny couldn't help her grin, she'd never been in a Muggle pub before, or even interacted with a Muggle outside of the farmers market at the village by The Burrow.

It was dark inside the pub, most of the light was coming from the big screens over the bar that had flashing images and a running commentary along the bottom of what was being said. The screen was hypnotizing.

"Try not to stare at it too much."

"What does it do? Isn't it called a television?"

"It is, but shorten the word to 'telly', and it mostly tries to sell you things in between games; like a visual wireless. You listen to Quidditch games, yes?" She nodded. "It's like that, but you can watch the games."

"It's really pretty," she said, still staring at it, then noticed there was another one farther along the bar that had something different on it.

Harry's head then blocked her vision and he leaned down and kissed her. That distracted her enough.

"Come on, my mates are already set up in a corner booth."

They all greeted him by announcing his name, three men that were roughly the same age as the two of them with at least one empty pint glass in front of them and another drink in their hands. Their focus quickly shifted from Harry to her though.

"You did it!" the one on the end announced happily. He was a blue-eyed, husky man with a mix of blond and brown hair that ran through his beard. "Is this her? Are you Ginny?" he asked her directly.

"I am," she blushed.

Promptly, all four of them started clapping and cheering.

Ginny looked up at Harry, who was also blushing slightly, but grinning widely.

"About bloody time!" the husky man announced. "I'm Brian, this is also Brian," he gestured to the slender, short haired man beside him, "and that one is Georgie." Georgie was a ginger, like her.

"Well, I don't think I'll have any trouble remembering your names then," Ginny grinned. "Now tell me what you mean by saying 'it's about bloody time'."

Harry went to the bar to get them drinks and gave Bearded Brian a nod allowing him to launch into the story. Apparently Harry had told them about her very early on, as in before she worked for him. Harry didn't appear at all bothered by this being shared, he just leaned over and kissed her shoulder when she gave him an interested look about it.

That was months of her day-dreaming about him that they could have been getting up to all sorts of different business after their weekly dinners.

As it was, she was already wondering how soon was too soon to encourage him to take her up to the second level of his house finally and show her his room.

It didn't happen that night.

It had been a great time hanging around with his friends, she'd sat with her back to the distracting telly and was able to follow along easily with what they were talking about. They mostly talked about football, work and women; Ginny knew about football from one of her boyfriends from school, and she obviously knew about work, the women bit she wasn't sure where she should chime in with her own insights, but the Brian's would flat out ask her for her opinion.

At the end of the night though, Harry Apparated her to her front door, kissed her soundly and said goodnight.

He was being respectable about it.

Which annoyed her.

When things got heated between them he was usually the one to cool things down. Yes, it had only been a week that they'd been together officially, but she had been wanting him for months, and he her as it turned out.

So, what was the hold up?

Through the weekend they sent an owl each to each other but there was no chance to meet up; Harry had to go off to Ireland and meet up with the people responsible for the site he was investigating on Monday and she had family obligations.

Harry was still in Ireland on Tuesday, then Wednesday he came back mid-day looking exhausted and could do more than give her a kiss and then head upstairs to wash and have a nap. He left the box of notes and such from the trip on her desk and she started sifting through it to see what he'd been dealing with; it was something from around 1845, when the Irish Potato Famine began, that's what the Muggles called it, it was actually yet another attempt by a Wizard to take over part of the Muggle world though. Gaeton Fitzpatrick was the wizard, he and his Pooka, an evil Irish fairy that he had, were responsible for causing all the destruction. From Harry's notes it appeared that he had been scavenging in the abandoned homes after the mass Muggle emigrations for anything of value and had been taking from the bodies of the deceased as well. A newly discovered hide away of his was simply packed with all the things he'd pilfered and Harry had been sifting through all of it for any sign that there had been Dark Arts used to enchant the items.

Which there hadn't.

By Thursday at lunch she had catalogued everything and was just closing the case box when Harry found her.

"It wasn't one of the longest jobs I've been on, but it was the most exhausting; and it all came up clean as well." He still looked tired, but now his sleep schedule was off so that was to be expected.

"It's a good thing that there weren't any cursed objects considering how much overtime you put into it. You are still allowed to sleep while you're on these trips you know."

He leaned back against the wall and pulled her to him so she stood between his legs, then he leaned in and took a good long inhale. "Merlin, you smell so good. That cave was so musty and mildewy and on top of that all I could smell was the salt from the sea. This right here was reason enough to rush through it all."

"So you could smell my hair?" she chuckled.

He leaned down and brushed her hair over her shoulder with his hand then kissed her neck. "Among other things."

'Mmm, yes, other things,' Ginny thought pleasantly while she enjoyed the sensation of his lips on her neck, and his tongue swirling against a spot on her collar. "Very good reasons," she sighed and tilted her head farther to grant him more access.

"Tell me we haven't got anything more that needs our immediate attention today," he asked as he pulled her in tighter and kissed his way up to her ear.

"Nothing that can't wait," she assured him before turning her head so she could kiss him properly.

Only little more than a week that they'd begun getting intimate but already she was craving him like chocolate. She'd been fantasizing naughty things about him for weeks and now that they were together those fantasies had intensified and she wanted more than kisses; she was a grown woman and knew what she was craving right now was well more than a snog.

"Ever heard of the song 'afternoon delight'?" she asked him leadingly between kisses.

He turned them around so she was the one against the wall. "Is this right here your afternoon delight?"

"Could turn into it. I'd rather be laying down for that though," she told him and rocked her hips against him suggestively. Too which he groaned.

He intensified his kisses and his hands started wandering along her bum and untucking her blouse. "So many spells on the stairs," he muttered. "It'd take time to get you passed them."

She hadn't realized the stairs were warded against her, but that was no matter right now while his hand was creeping up her back and along her bra line, around to the front to grasp a handful of her breast.

Ginny pulled at his clothes to loosen them as well. "Lucky for us we have this thing called 'magic' and the ability to cast a cushioning charm wherever we want." She was laying it all out for him now. She wanted sex, her lady business was simply begging to be filled.

"Are you sure?"

An unexpected growl came out of her throat at his question. "Are you going to make me beg for it?"

That got him motivated. His shirt was off quickly then he was working on her skirt while she ran her hand through the small bit of chest hair he had and grinned. She heard the two spells he used, one for cushioning, on the table no less, and the other for contraception, then they were back at each others mouths and continuing to pull off their clothes piece by piece until she was naked with her legs wrapped around his waist while he carried her over to the table.

It took a moment to get oriented, but then he was between her legs and sliding into her. That initial sensation of being filled had her feeling blissful enough, then he started moving and she started humming with pleasure. It had been such a long time for her, she'd practically revirginized.

Harry was keeping the movements slow and taking his time with it, she didn't know whether it was for her benefit or simply felt incredible for him, she wanted to cum though, multiple times if they could managed it, so she grasped his hips and held them still while she ground her hips against him in the way that was going to set her off quickly. He caught on and took over. "Ah, yes!" she moaned against him. Harry started kissing her collar then, swirling his tongue around in a fashion that would have done amazing things against her clit. It got her imagining him doing those things against her clit and was pulling her finish forward quickly.

She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. It all felt so incredible, she wanted the feeling to last.

Instead the shockwave set off on she arched her back as it ran through her, her legs clamping down around his own and forcing him even closer.

Once it subsided she rested back against the table and realized he wasn't moving. Ginny opened her eyes and saw he was staring down at her with unbridled desire in his eyes. "Why did you stop?"

"I had to watch that," he told her unabashedly. He leaned down and kissed her, then started thrusting his hips again.

"Mmm, if it's a show you want, perhaps I should be on top."

Harry nearly rolled them off the table in an attempt to get her on top as quickly as possible. She laughed over his eagerness, but he was still eager and motivated to get on with it, which was a nice boost to her confidence and by the time she was sitting astride him he was the one still doing the thrusting while his eyes continued to rake over her.

Ginny put her hands on his chest to try and get him to calm down enough so she could take the lead. "Patience, Potter. I want to try for another," she winked.

Ten more minutes and she was completely satisfied, laying on her back against the cool wood of the conference table. Her body was exhausted from the work out, and from the two releases she'd had.

"Do I have your permission to have a little kip right here?" she asked jokingly.

"Seems only fair, I certainly need one." He sounded just as exhausted and satisfied as she was.

He'd better be, she thought, riding him like that and making little teasing movements with her hips had been a feat of endurance for her thighs.

()()()

"Ginny!"

The excitement in his announcing her arrival gave her a start; she'd just come through the Floo and it was early on Monday morning.

"You sound too chipper for a Monday morning, what's going on?"

Harry had a habit of getting enthusiastic about new cases that were going to involve a lot of Ministry forms and headaches for her; were she the one on his end, she would understand the excitement, but she wasn't.

"Nothing bad, I promise," he came closer and wrapped his arms around her, giving her a kiss in greeting. "I spent yesterday on a little project and I believe I was successful."

Yesterday she'd been at The Burrow for her weekly family dinners, something Harry had yet to attend even though they'd been together for two months now. It would have been an awkward thing to explain about how she was shagging her boss, so she was putting off that conversation for as long as possible. Right now it was just Luna and Harry's Muggle friends that knew about their work and relationship status.

Things had been going really well so far with the relationship, they could still balance the professional with the want to rip each other's clothes off. So far as she could tell, none of the clients had caught on that they were an item.

Ginny let Harry take her by the hand to the hallway, then he indicated towards the stairs with a nod of his head.

"What?" she looked over to the stairs and tried to catch what he was doing.

"Go upstairs," he said plainly.

"What?"

Nearly half a year she'd been working at Potter- D.A Ltd and he'd finally granted her access to his proper work area? Maybe even his living area too!

"Come on," he started them heading for the stairs.

"Wait, you aren't doing this because you've got a million more boxes for me to sort through, are you? Because I don't have the time for that today."

"No," he sighed. "I'm not a slob, I wanted those boxes out of the upper floors so I didn't have to look at them all the time, I just didn't have the time to think of another way to sort them."

It was on the tenth step that she felt them pass through the ward, there was a slight resistance she felt against her body, like wind slowing her down, but there was no wind, then she was on the other side of it, and it was surprisingly bright on the upper floors. Yet, when she looked up the stairs from the bottom it always appeared dark and obscured.

The walls were painted a bright color and the pictures on the walls were all of smiling faces of his friends and family, they were all waving at her and she waved back.

"In here," Harry guided her into the room on the left at the top of the stairs. The room was empty save for a pedestal in the middle and two large portraits on either wall. One of the portraits she recognized as Sirius Black, the other bore a striking resemblance to Harry but with different eyes.

"Is that your father?" she asked.

"James Potter," the man in the portrait introduced.

"Oh, we get to meet her finally!" came a woman's voice from behind them.

Ginny turned around and saw there was a third portrait of a woman with dark red hair and ivory skin with Harry's striking green eyes.

She clutched Harry's hand hard and pulled him closer, "you could have warned me you were bringing me to meet your parents!"

Harry laughed. "While they are technically my parents, I don't think this really counts."

"Excuse you," Lily Potter scolded. "I may be eternally younger than you, but I was put here with the clear memory of the entire birthing processes, so yes I am your mother."

"That's just the thing a mother would say too," Ginny agreed.

"This is the room where I test all the objects I've been given to remove any dark spells or enchantments they might have. The three here," he pointed at the portraits, "help with that."

"And here I thought you'd been holing yourself up here all alone! That's great that you have people you can consult." It was just about the sweetest thing she could think of, he'd still been able to talk to his parents and get to know them a bit by having their memories preserved in these portraits, and his godfathers as well.

"And I'll let them put the screws to you later, right now I want to show you the rest of the house."

She waved a farewell to them and caught Sirius Black giving her a wink before they were back in the hallway. Harry then showed her the library, the spare room, his bedroom on the third floor, yet another spare room, the bathroom, another spare room, then up onto the roof where he had installed a nice patio area with a little herb garden.

"It's so much house for just you," she commented once they were back down on the main floor.

"Well, now that you've got access to all of it, maybe it won't just be me spending nights alone here sometimes."

"Harry!" she fake gasped. "You mean you want me to suffer through spending a few nights in that enormous bed of yours with the very comfortable looking pillows rather than the two of us squeezing onto my double bed?"

"I just think spending the night all curled up with you should be an option, not a necessity due to limited space," he teased right back.

From there the relationship only got better, she finally introduced him to her family around month four, he emptied out a drawer for her in his room around month five, around month six was when she couldn't remember when the last time was that they'd spent a night apart.

Then month seven happened. In month seven Harry had a lot of cases that were taking him away from London. Harry would do what should have been a four-day job in only two days because he would work on it non-stop so he could return home quicker, but then he'd be tired and snappy, also, then he'd have another case waiting for him that he felt sure needed to also be taken care of in the same manner.

He was burning himself out and it was resulting in him being short with her. Ginny growing up in the family that she did, in the manner that she had, meant she was being short with him right back. This escalated until one night she was laying in her bed, alone again, wondering when things were going to calm down.

They hadn't even shagged in weeks because of his exhaustion and work schedule.

That's when it hit her; of course they were arguing all the time, there hadn't been any sex to help work out some of that frustration!

So, what the hell was she doing in her own bed when Harry was at home alone in his?

It wasn't too late in the night, still before midnight; Harry would be home by now if he'd gone out to the pub, and if he had gone to bed hours ago, there was a chance that he was having a hard time falling asleep like she was.

Ginny pulled off her comfortable pyjamas and pulled on something a little less comfortable, then put on her housecoat and went straight for the Floo.

She knew Harry's place as well as she knew her own now and headed straight through the reception area and up the two flights of stairs to his bedroom, and knocked gently on his bedroom door. She put her ear to the door to listen for a moment, after a beat she heard him moving around, then opened the door herself, catching him half way to the door himself.

"Ginny, it's late."

She closed the door and rested back against it. "I know. I couldn't sleep though."

He sighed and ran a hand over his face. "Look, I know we need to talk, I'm just really tired and-"

She dropped her housecoat which effectively shut him up. "I don't want to talk."

She watched as his eyes raked over her in her silk teddy. She stepped toward him and ran her hands up his chest as he continued to stare down at her breasts, then her hands travelled downward and into his pyjama bottoms and was happy to find that he'd already been growing hard. A small sound escaped his lips as she began stroking him.

"Not too tired for this, I hope."

He shook his head.

"Good. Because I think a good shag is the only way I'm going to get to sleep tonight."

"You don't fight fair," he breathed out.

Ginny kissed up his jaw to his ear. "I don't want to fight at all," she then gave a nip to his earlobe, "I want to fuck."

He hissed out a 'yes', then made quick work of tossing her onto the bed and shucking off his clothes, leaving her in her dress though.

Ginny woke the next morning feeling more rested than she had in weeks. The sheets were twisted all around her body, which was twisted all around Harry's body. Harry's naked body, which he'd used to manipulate her into all kinds of positions last night. She grinned and bit her lip as she thought about the passion they'd put into it last night, then rubbed her thighs together a bit to see if she could tell how sore she was.

"Keep making that movement and I'm going to insist on another round," he said sleepily.

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

He was quick to roll her over and slide into her again in a spooning position, leaving her gasping because she hadn't realized he had already been hard. He started off slow, then picked up the pace when she began pushing back against him. They'd built up a sheen of sweat and gotten to the point of her bracing her hand against the headboard so she could give a harder thrust back against him. It felt so good. "Touch me," she demanded.

Harry dipped his finger low at first when he reached around to where they were joined, getting it wet from their combined efforts, then started tracing frantic circles around her clit that had her screaming out in no time, then his own groan was quick to follow.

"Fuck, I missed you," he sighed as he came down from his high.

"I missed you too."

He slid out of her and they fell back against the sheets, laying in the same way they had been when they woke up.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair as he kissed the top of her head a few minutes later.

"There's nothing to be sorry for. We were bound to have a fight eventually, now we can recognize it better in the future, and hopefully diffuse it in much the same way."

"You're going to make me want to instigate things when you put it that way."

She smiled to herself and started drifting off again when a knock at the door woke her. "Did someone just knock at your door?"

"What?" He had clearly fallen asleep again.

"Harry, I think someone knocked at your door. Who even has access up here besides you?"

Then the knock came again, and louder this time.

Harry shot up into a sitting position and grabbed the bed sheets, covering her up, and just in time before the door opened.

"Hey!" Harry called out at the intruder.

"Hey yourself! I though you-whoa!" said a man's voice that Ginny recognized.

Ginny couldn't see who it was because Harry was blocking her.

"Get out!" Harry hollered at the man.

She squirmed around a bit until she could see around Harry's back and saw an average sized man with wavey dark hair turning around and leaving. He'd been dressed in crisp dark dressy trousers and a collared shirt.

"Who was that?!" This was so confusing, no one was supposed to be able to get in the house, let alone up the stairs, without an appointment.

Yet, she recognized the mans voice and his hair looked familiar too.

Harry went to his dresser and started pulling on clothes, then went to her drawer and tossed a few at her. "You should probably use the Floo in my room. I'll call on you later." With that he ducked out of the room, no further explanation.

Well, that wasn't sitting right with her.

Ginny took a look at the two bra's, t-shirt and knickers he'd tossed to her in his haste to cover her up and rush out of the room.

It wasn't like she expected him to tell her all of his secrets, but it would have been nice if he'd told her there was someone else that could walk in on them at any moment. What if he'd shown up last night when she had been extra vocal?

She pulled on one of the bras and the knickers, then took the rest to her drawer and got dressed. She wasn't leaving though. She'd been so distracted by their mounting tension that there had been a few things that had needed to get done that hadn't been. So, instead of leaving, she opened the door to the hallway and went downstairs, making sure to have heavy footing the entire way so they knew she was coming.

She heard their voices coming from the library and the way they halted as she passed. The door was closed and she didn't stop in, she kept going downstairs and into the kitchen.

'He would tell her later,' she kept thinking to herself as she made some breakfast, she took her breakfast and went into the conference room where there were two boxes that still needed to be sorted through and set herself to work.

Her coffee had gone cold by the time she heard him coming down the stairs and head into the kitchen.

Then she heard another set of footsteps coming down the stairs, which might have been the mysterious visitor. Ginny picked up her coffee cup and set it back down again hard enough for the sound to carry out into the hallway, then moved a box on the table too for some extra noise.

It worked, the footsteps were moving towards the room and stopped when he reached the doorway.

Her determination to look calm and collected when looking up to see either Harry or the visitor there was gone when she saw who it was.

His portrait was an exact likeness of what he looked like now.

Nearly ten years had passed since he'd passed, and yet, here he was looking the exact same as his newspaper clippings and the portrait that Harry consulted.

It wasn't uncommon for people between the ages of 40-50 to not appear to have aged, men in particular, yet this was some kind of Dorian Grey portrait Harry had. Perhaps it was some kind of Dart Art necromancy that was preserving him.

"You're looking well, Ginny," Sirius greeted her.

She could say nothing, only continue to stare.

"Glad you decided to come over last night and set my boy straight. He's not got much of a clue when it comes to relationships such as this." Sirius then took a look around and pointed at the case cubbies. "This was a great idea. Really glad he brought you on. And extra glad that he's found a partnership in you like he has." Sirius pulled out a chair beside her then and looked over her notes. "I came over here this morning to help Harry figure out how to deal with this hiccup of yours, your relationship. I certainly didn't expect that it would have gotten sorted by you between last night and this morning. Kudo's to you on that."

Her hand had a mind of its own then and she reached across the table and poked the back of his hand. He was real, and his skin was not cold to the touch.

"I'm real," he smirked. "And I'm not dead."

"How," was all she could get out.

Harry showed up in the doorway then with a tea tray in his hands. "That's a long story."

Then they told it to her; how the media was harassing Sirius, how after the defeat of Voldemort he couldn't get a moments peace, how he'd decided that raising Harry and schooling him outside of Hogwarts was the only choice for both their sakes. Then they explained how when Harry turned of age Sirius wanted to properly go into hiding, and they'd come up with this; Potter D.A Inc. See, the portrait in the room upstairs was no portrait at all, it was a two-way mirror. The only portraits in that room were of Harry's parents. Sirius had been a partner in the business and was living on St. Helena Island, an Island in the Atlantic over a thousand miles off the West coast of Africa; it was remote there with very little tourism and almost exclusively inhabited by Muggles.

It was also in the same time zone, thus his ability to keep up with Harry and his hours.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Ginny asked finally. "I know I work here, but isn't this something that you and Harry should be taking to your graves if you want to keep your privacy and the myth of your death still alive?"

Sirius looked to Harry then and teased him with only his expression. "Yeah, Harry, why am I admitting all this to her?"

Harry shifted. "Er, because you've worked here long enough, you should know."

"Bull shit," she and Sirius said at the same time then cast each other a similar smile.

Harry looked skywards for strength. "Because I trust you, and because I don't see our relationship changing any time soon. It was time you knew. Sirius catching us together this morning seemed like the ideal time to let you in on it."

Ginny narrowed her eyes at him. That was plausible, yes, but there was something more, she knew it was.

"And," Sirius pressed.

"Fuck off, Sirius. I think that's enough reason for now."

"So if he hadn't caught us in bed together this morning, I still wouldn't know?" she asked. "If that's the case, then were you really ever planning on telling me?"

"Yes, eventually," Harry assured her. "I had a situation in mind where I'd convince you we were going on a work trip but really I was taking you to his place so you could meet him."

That sounded more like him.

"And was he really coming over this morning to give you a pep talk about how to end our fight?" she couldn't resist asking. They hadn't shared too much about previous relationships, but she knew that he'd never granted anyone else access to his living space before and felt confident that she meant more to him than any other girlfriends he might have had.

"Well, I certainly wouldn't have been able to pull off your method for ending the fight. That only works when women are the one doing it."

"Whoa," Sirius pushed back from the table. "I don't think I need to hear this part. I'll be in the kitchen."

"I did ask him to give me some advice," Harry continued after Sirius left. "All I knew was that no matter how hard I was working so I could get back to you quicker, there was always something else coming up that was keeping us apart."

"It was mostly you, Harry," she pointed out. "You were burning the candle at both ends and so tired when you were here that you were snappy and sullen."

"Well, when I was out trying to hurry through finishing up a case I was thinking about you! Then you kept sending me to bed as soon as I got back, like you didn't want to spend any time with me. It put me in a bad mood."

"You kept showing up in the middle of the morning when I'm at my busiest and smelling of something awful! You were dead on your feet! Yet I always greeted you with a kiss. I thought I was helping by sending you to shower and sleep."

"For three weeks straight? You could have at least joined me at the end of your work day instead of going home," he challenged.

He was getting snippy again, so she got snippy right back. "Well, now I know you wanted that. At least I joined you last night and did something to set us right. And yes, you could have shown up at my flat and told me you missed me or something."

"Well, if you lived here then we would solve that problem of who goes where, wouldn't it?"

She opened her mouth to argue something back at him, but, had he just asked her to move in with him?

"Come again?"

"You heard me."

"You're asking me to move in with you to end an argument?"

"No, I'm asking you to move in with me because it's sounding like we both want it. You were hoping I'd show up at your bedroom door, I was hoping you'd show up at mine. That wouldn't be an issue if we had the same bedroom door."

"You think us living together would resolve your stubbornness?" That seemed like an extreme solution to her.

"I'm not stubborn!"

"You are set in your ways though," she pointed out. "What do you think we'll be fighting about next? Because I don't keep the loo as clean as you like it. You've seen the mess at my place. I leave clothes on the floor or on the backs of chairs because they aren't quite dirty enough to constitute washing again. That'll drive you mad and then we'll be arguing about that."

"I don't care about the little domestic arguments we'll undoubtedly have, I care about trying to fall asleep at night and not knowing whether you're mad at me. If you're there next to me at least I'll know and can try to fix it."

He sounded firm on that. She could handle them squabbling about the right way to hang a towel after using it, but having to go back to hers after a hard day at work without him was emotionally taxing.

"Do you really think we're ready for that? I mean, we work together, we're in a relationship, if we live together, what… what if it's too much?"

"It won't be."

"But how do you know? What if we're a month into living together, we wind up with nothing to talk about because all of our anecdotes are work related, and then we just never talk about anything but work."

"We will still have lives outside of Grimmauld Place; I've got my group of friends, you've got yours, plus your family. Combined that's a hell of a lot of things to talk about. I'm not expecting you to move in and us both be locked in here."

"But-"

"Merlin, Ginny, if you don't want to, just say it."

"No, I do, I'm just worried, that's all."

And she did. She loved living with Luna, but she loved Harry too, and she loved this house and the way that the third floor and the rooftop garden felt like they were entirely separate from the business. Knowing that she could fall asleep next to him every night was a huge selling bonus.

"You do?"

"Yes, I do."

"Well. Great then. So, you'll just tell Luna and I'll make more space for all your things."

There was a loud clearing-of-the-throat noise from the hallway where Sirius had clearly been eavesdropping. Ginny looked toward the door, then back to Harry, who was glaring at it.

"And?" she asked, since clearly he and Sirius had discussed something else that hadn't been divulged to her.

Harry threw up a charm that would muffle their voices so Sirius wouldn't overhear.

"And I know I should have said this sooner, but I love you and I see a future with you. That's another reason I want you to move in, because I want that future to start now."

She felt her insides melt at those words and put her hand over his. "I want that too, and I've been mad about you for months."

()()()

Sirius had obviously given them his blessing to live under what was technically his roof, Ginny's parents weren't to thrilled about her living with her boyfriend before they were married, her mum was even less thrilled that she couldn't even see the house other than the main floor.

And Harry and Ginny did have a few fights, but never one that couldn't be solved with a kiss and an apology from one of them.

Potter D.A- Inc continued to be profitable for many years, through the two of them living together as boyfriend and girlfriend, then husband and wife, through two of Ginny's three pregnancies, then they needed to bring on extra help when baby number three came along and it got to be too much for Ginny to handle all the kids and the office work side of the business. Harry started scaling back then on the number of cases he took then since the new receptionist wasn't as good as his wife.

Then Harry was offered the Defense Against the Dark Arts professorship at Hogwarts and Ginny became what she never thought she would wind up as; a housewife and mother. She remained at home raising the kids until the last of them went off to Hogwarts, then took over the bookkeeping and owl order side of the twins' joke shop.

It amused her to no end sending parcels to the kids so they could torture their dad with them in class.

()()()