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[four2andnew]

Hufflepup Ch 2 - Intervention

Harry had never experienced the slowing of time before. Perhaps he could blame the pensieve for shifts in temporal perception. All the heads in the room - two Head of House heads, a referee head, a Headmaster head and the family heads - swung towards Harry in slow motion, each soft clink of Dumbledore’s instruments akin to hammer striking anvil. And in that moment where time stretched slower than stale chewing gum, Harry realized two things: 1) His unvocalized desire to snog Ginevra Weasley until she forgot her loss, her house and her own name had made an unauthorized leap over the introvert fence in a bid for vocal actualization. 2) Vocal chords engaged in vocal actualization produced perceptible sound. “Shite.”

Hufflepup - An Everyone Lives AU Chapter 1 / Chapter 2

[four2andnew]

Hinny 💭

The fact that Harry Potter was going out with Ginny Weasley seemed to interest a great number of people, most of them girls, yet Harry found himself newly and happily impervious to gossip over the next few weeks. After all, it made a very nice change to be talked about because of something that was making him happier than he could remember being for a very long time, rather than because he had been involved in horrific scenes of Dark Magic.

- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, p. 535

[four2andnew]

Since they both came up in my shuffle during my morning commute today -

Songs from different genres that give off the same energy:

Flavor of the Weak by American Hi-Fi (2001) and You Belong with Me by Taylor Swift (2008)

Book Rec if the dude from FotW was singing about the pining girl in YBwM:

Say You Swear by Meagan Brandy

[four2andnew]

About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

[four2andnew]

something we agreed we like about uncle vernon is that despite like, personally suffering at the hands of wizards pretty significantly (dudley’s tail, marge), vernon is like, always ready to fuck with wizards? like he is SO SCARED of them but he’s always ready to fight? please take this moment to imagine uncle vernon meeting voldemort

[four2andnew]

[four2andnew]

I'm curious, how do you think Harry/Ginny was foreshadowed? I always thought it came out of left field.

OKAY LET’S DO THIS

The attention given to Ginny’s crush on Harry.  In the second book, her crush served the purpose (among other purposes) of making Ginny even more susceptible to Riddle’s diary.  But after that, it served no apparent purpose at all, and yet JKR made it a point to call attention to it at least once in every single book.  (I’ve seen it argued that its purpose after CoS was to provide comic relief, but the problem with that argument is that her crush wasn’t always presented in a comical way, i.e., her sadness when she learned Harry wanted to ask Cho to the Yule Ball.)  After Chamber of Secrets, there was no reason for JKR to keep reminding the reader of Ginny’s crush the way she did unless something was eventually going to come of it.  (As a side note, Ginny’s crush on Harry also served the purpose of keeping Harry from really getting to know Ginny before JKR was ready for him to do so, since her crush made her cripplingly shy around him.)

The attention given to Ginny’s love life in general.  Because really, her love life is given an inordinate amount of attention for a secondary character.  At every point in the series, JKR made sure we knew exactly what the status of it was.  We were told (repeatedly) that Ginny had an unrequited crush on Harry.  We were told who her date to the Yule Ball was going to be, and we were even given a glimpse of them at the Ball itself, despite the fact that there were approximately 1 bajillion other things for Harry to notice that night.  We were told when Ginny had given up on Harry.  We were told about her first boyfriend, and we were told when they broke up and why.  We were told about her second boyfriend, about every fight, every tiff they had, and we were told when they finally broke up and why.  Again, that is a lot of attention to be given to the love life of a secondary character.  Indeed, throughout the series, we’re given more detail about Ginny’s love life than we are Hermione’s.  And the only reason there would be to give so much attention to the love life of someone who wasn’t even a main character was because it was going to become important to Harry’s storyline later on.  The only other non-Trio character whose love life is given similar attention is Cho Chang — the other character in the series whose love life was at one point important to Harry.

The consistently positive and/or vivid descriptions Harry gives of Ginny’s appearance, even early in the series.  When she blushes, he describes it as “her face glowing like the setting sun.”  Her eyes aren’t just brown, they’re “bright brown.”  She has a “long mane of bright red hair,” and at one point that long mane of bright red hair even “danced behind her.”  She doesn’t just sit in a chair, she “sits curled up like a cat, her eyes reflecting the firelight.”  Granted, some of these descriptions might not sound particularly special taken by themselves, but they certainly are when you compare them with the way Harry typically describes the appearance of most other characters.  If you pay attention, you can tell when Harry is describing a girl he finds attractive, and it’s pretty clear, especially in retrospect, that he found Ginny Weasley attractive.

Harry is observant and considerate of Ginny from the very beginning.  On his first trip to Hogwarts, he watches her laughing and running after the Hogwarts Express — and he keeps watching her until she’s out of sight.  Later, at the Burrow, he notices when she puts her elbow in the butter dish, even though no one else does, and he doesn’t call it to anyone’s attention so as not to embarrass her.  He gives her all of his Lockhart books.  He notices later in the year that she looks pale and upset, and that she’s distressed by the attack on Colin Creevey.  He observes that her well-meaning brothers are not exactly going about cheering her up in the right way.  He does his best to soothe her when she wakes up in the Chamber.  He’s later desperately anxious to tell the story in a way that doesn’t make her look guilty in any way, and he feels “sweeping, glorious relief” when he learns she won’t be expelled or otherwise punished for the Chamber incident.  And that’s just in the first two books.  As you can see, the all too frequent claim that “Harry never cared about Ginny or even knew she existed until HBP” is patently untrue.

From OotP:  “Did you see the look on Chang’s face when Ginny got the Snitch right out from under her nose?” said Ron.  Just for the record, I love Cho and have always felt a lot of sympathy for her.  But after OotP came out, a lot of people (including me) saw this as a bit of Harry/Ginny foreshadowing, and later, after the final book had come out, JKR confirmed that that’s exactly what it was.

Also from OotP:  “Well, I always thought [Michael Corner] was a bit of an idiot,” [Ron] said, prodding his queen forwards towards Harry’s quivering castle. “Good for you. Just choose someone—better—next time.”  He cast Harry an oddly furtive look as he said it.

[four2andnew]

Spring Again, Somehow

Written for @corneliaavenue-ao3's TTPD fest

Prompt: I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

Read on AO3 or below the cut:

It was supposed to rain that morning. One last disappointment before it was all over, one more thing to grit her teeth and power through, no matter how trivial. And yet, somehow, the drizzling clouds had parted just in time, and Ginny found herself only a few sparkling feet of water away from the end of her time at Hogwarts, in the same boat that had carried her towards the castle all those years ago. There were four of us in this boat back then, Ginny thought, and tried to ignore the dull ache creeping into her chest.

Hermione sat in front of her, staring straight ahead at the spot on the shore where all the families of seventh-year students were waiting for them. To anyone else, she would have looked the picture of a leader: stoic and calm, chin held high. But Ginny could sense the slightly shallow breathing, the clammy palm that reached back to grasp her own, the small smile as Ginny squeezed her hand back. It was perhaps the first time Ginny knew exactly what Hermione was thinking. It’s over. It’s over. It’s finally, nearly over. Thank goodness. Thank goodness thank goodness thank goodness.

The boat hit the shore with a tiny jolt, and Ginny could hear a distant cheering. It was muffled somehow. Subdued. All Ginny could hear was the roar of the wind, the lapping of the water, her own heart pounding in her head. She thought she might be sick. There were so many people, all of them and none of them strangers, and yet she could already tell exactly who was missing.

She stood, unsteadily for a moment, as she stepped out of the boat and onto the shore. Towards the back of the crowd, a few familiar shocks of red hair made themselves visible above everyone else, and Ginny hardly registered the looks, the chatter, the whispers she’d grown far too used to as she headed straight for them, relief crashing over her. 

Her parents reached her first, their eyes shining with tears as they wrapped their arms around her and squeezed her tight. Sometimes, these days, she couldn’t tell if their hugs felt tighter or weaker. Some strange combination of both, maybe. One she’d never known before last year. 

When they finally pulled apart, her mother was furiously wiping away the tears streaming down her face. 

“Oh Ginny, I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought I– ”

“You’d have cried no matter what, I think,” Ginny said softly. “Me being the last one and all.”

This only made her mum cry harder, though she did crack a slight smile. Her dad chuckled softly and pulled her close again. 

“It’s strange, that’s for certain,” he said.

Ginny could only nod into his chest.

Her brothers greeted her next, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and teasing. Even Charlie and Percy had come, which, in the past, would have meant that all of her brothers were here. She hugged George, thankfully less skinny than he’d been at Christmas, and tried not to think.

And there, standing behind the rest of the family (as she was sure he’d insisted), glasses glinting in the sunlight, was Harry. She made a beeline for him, barely registering Ron muttering something to Hermione, and nearly threw herself into his arms. She kissed him, not unlike he had after that Quidditch final her fifth year, only this time there were no whoops, no whistles, no surprises. Just Harry. 

He was warm, and he smelled like home, and Ginny could have stayed there forever, forgotten everything that had happened, everything that was to come. All the letters they’d sent, all the sneaky meet-ups in Hogsmeade, all the hours they’d spent together over Christmas and Easter were nothing compared to the months and years they would have from that point on.

“Hi,” she said as she pulled back, face flushed. 

“Hello to you too,” he said. His eyes were shining, his grin broader than she’d seen in a long time.

There were so many things she could have said, so many thoughts racing through her mind. She felt like she might explode, or fold in on herself, or crumble into pieces until she was small enough to be whisked away by the wind.

“Do you want to go walk by the lake?” she said instead. “Get away from this crowd?” For old times’ sake.

He nodded, pressing his lips to her hair and steering them both toward an empty green spot down the shore.

For the first time since stepping out of the boat, Ginny could see the castle. Like a painting, the clouds had parted just over the grounds, sending great beams of light down, reflecting pearlescent blues and pinks and golds off of the lake and the trees and the castle towers. One year ago, those towers had still been smoldering, the gaping wounds obvious even across the lake. But there it stood, imposing as ever, the place of bloody walls and soaked stone floors and pleading whimpers and screams and sobs in pitch-black dungeons. Of glorious feasts and laughter by the fire and misty sunrise flying and sunny days on the grounds with Harry. 

The place that destroyed her, and the place that made her, too.

She shivered slightly, the rain-chilled wind grazing her face, and felt Harry’s arms hold her tighter. 

“What’re you thinking?” he murmured into her hair.

Ginny paused for a moment.

“I didn’t think I would miss it,” she finally said. “So many times, I just wanted to leave and never come back. This year, first year, every year at some point, honestly. I couldn’t wait to get off that boat today, and yet…”

She trailed off, leaning her head against Harry’s shoulder. Part of her still hoped he couldn’t notice the lump growing in her throat.

“I don’t think that sounds strange,” he said. “I’m, y’know… not always the best judge of that stuff, but–”

Ginny chuckled and grinned into his shoulder. 

“That makes two of us,” she said.

Harry grinned. “At least we’ve got a choice now. You’ll be busy with Quidditch, I’ll be doing my work, and we’ll never have to be back here until Teddy’s the one finishing school.”

“Oh god,” Ginny laughed. “We’ll be so old by then.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, but he was smiling. That lovely, soft smile that made her heart swell. 

I get to see that smile for the rest of my life, Ginny thought. Suddenly she was crying, and laughing again, somehow. And Harry was laughing too, pulling her close, the castle fading into the sunlight.

[four2andnew]

Guilty As Sin?

A/N: this is (extremely) mildly NSFW.

Dedicated to loml @merlinsbudgiesmugglers without her, I wouldn't have written it.

For @corneliaavenue-ao3 TTPD fest, I hereby conduct into evidence one very tortured Potter.

Read on AO3 or below:

It wasn’t unusual for him to find Ginny already there when Harry returned home from work. Her training schedule typically finished a few hours before he left the office. Normally, upon arriving home, he found her in the living room, pouring over the latest issue of Quidditch Times, or, if the weather was good, in the garden, flying like she hadn't spent her entire day doing that very thing. Harry did not, as a general rule, come home to find Ginny in their rarely-used dining room, leaning against the wooden table with a thin dragon-hide wallet clutched in her hands.

The smile that had automatically bloomed on Harry's face at the prospect of seeing Ginny quickly morphed into a frown as he inclined his head at the object in her hand. “What are you doing with that?”

“This?” Ginny didn't look the least perturbed by his expression as she held the wallet up, letting it fall open for Harry's inspection. “Like my badge, do you?”

“It's not your badge.” He felt a smirk tug at one corner of his lips, but Harry forced it down, intrigued to see what purpose she'd apparently pickpocketed him without his notice for.

“Of course it is,” Ginny pushed off the table, coming to stand directly in front of him. She held the badge up to his face, conveniently covering Harry's picture with her thumb, so that only the Ministry seal and his name were visible. “See, it says Potter, last I checked, that was my name – now, take a seat, I'm trying to conduct a very serious investigation.”

She pulled out the closest chair and directed Harry into it before he had an opportunity to protest. He watched, from his new seat, simultaneously confused and curious, as Ginny made her way around the table, trailing a finger slowly across the wooden surface before she took the chair directly across from him.

“What seems to be the matter, Auror Potter?” He heard himself ask. Ginny gave him an approving nod, as though he'd just perfectly delivered a line from a script he hadn't known he was reading.

Then her eyebrows pinched together in a look of extreme concern. “I'm sorry to tell you, there's been a murder committed in this house –” the pronouncement was accompanied by a wink that was obviously meant to allay the tension that gathered within Harry upon hearing it. “Geraldine is dead.”

A strong wave of relief rushed through him, quickly receding, giving way to yet more confusion. “Geraldine?” he repeated. “Geraldine the Fanged Geranium?”

The monstrosity of a plant had been gifted to them by Percy; Harry had hated it since the moment it had entered the house, its fangs barred menacingly at anyone who dared look at it. Ginny, on the other hand, in a display of surprisingly Hagrid-like behaviour had been enchanted by the horrid thing and had decided, inexplicably, to name it Geraldine.

“Yes,” Ginny confirmed. “I found her on the kitchen windowsill this afternoon – her leaves were drooping and her petals had fallen off – someone hadn't watered her.”

Harry tried very hard to maintain an innocent expression under the weight of her accusatory glare. “Maybe she's not dead, maybe she's sleeping.”

This suggestion was met by a deeply unimpressed look from Ginny which might have been believable if not for the crease at the corner of her mouth, which Harry knew meant she was trying not to laugh. “Plants don't sleep, Harry.”

“I thought you were an Auror, not an expert Herbologist?”

The crease deepened. “I have many talents.”

“Apparently not keeping plants alive.”

Ginny's eyes narrowed and Harry regretted the comment almost at once. She pushed out of her seat and crossed back around the table, looking down at him as she leant on the wooden surface beside him. “I didn't kill her… you didn't water her.”

“Yes, I did,” Harry protested.

Her arms folded over her chest. “Prove it.”

“That's not how it works,” Harry said through a laugh as he shook his head. “You're accusing me of something, you either need to get me to confess or you have to prove it.”

Unexpectedly, upon hearing this simplified explanation of the justice system, Ginny's smile finally broke free. There was a hint of triumph in it that made Harry's nerves stand on end.

Her hand slid against the smooth surface of the table as she lowered herself until her face was beside his, her lips almost brushing against his ear. “I guess I'll have to get you to confess then.”

Her breath caressed his skin as she spoke. Harry fought against the shiver that tried to creep down his spine. “Good luck with that.”

“Oh, I don't need luck,” Ginny said, sliding closer so that Harry was forced to push his chair back, giving her room to sit on the table directly in front of him. “I have plenty of powers of persuasion.”

Harry snorted in disbelief. “None that would be considered regulation.”

“Maybe not, but I play by my own rules.” As though to prove her point, she extended one of her legs, her toe sliding idly up the inside of Harry's calf. Her head tilted to the side; a wave of vivid red hair cascaded over her shoulder. “Now, are you going to cooperate or do I have to use force?”

Ginny's foot glided past his knee, towards his thigh; Harry inhaled sharply. His eyes met hers across the small distance that separated them and he could see the challenge she'd issued sparking with them. “I think you're going to have to use force.”

“That's a shame,” Ginny sighed as she pushed off the table, though everything about her languid movements suggested that was exactly what she'd wanted him to say. Her hand came to rest on the back of Harry's chair, supporting her as she leaned into him. He could feel the heat radiating from her body, so close but not actually touching him. “I was really hoping to put this case to bed.”

Harry kept his eyes locked on the bare stretch of wall over Ginny's shoulder, determined to ignore the three buttons she'd left open on her shirt, and the view it offered him from this particular angle as much as he was ignoring the insinuation in her words. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

Undeterred, Ginny hummed quietly. Her free hand reached up, fingertips finding Harry's chin and forcing his eyes to meet hers again. The heat he saw building in them seemed to transfer to his blood which scorched in his veins. “Why make this harder than it needs to be?”

Her fingers trailed from his jaw to his neck, stroking lightly across his skin. Harry swallowed beneath her fingertips.

His hands gripped the arms of his chair, knuckles turning white, determined not to give her the satisfaction of touching her despite how desperately he wanted to. “Is this how you think interrogations work?”

She moved in closer, all but straddling him on the dining room chair. The tip of her nose brushed against Harry's cheek, her fingers wove up into his hair; his eyes fell closed at the contact. “I'm the Auror, I'll be doing the questioning.” The statement was punctuated by her teeth scraping against the shell of his ear.

His resolve snapped in an instant; Harry's hands left the arms of his chair, finding Ginny's hips instead. He pulled her to him, until her body was settled flush against his. Her mouth was still at his ear, her lips grazing over it, but Harry was rewarded for the bold move by a small sigh that escaped her before she could stop it.

“Really?” He asked doubtfully, his hand slipping beneath the hem of her shirt, fingers dancing over her skin. “Because you haven't actually asked me any.”

Momentarily silent, Ginny's back arched into Harry's touch, guiding his hand further up towards her chest. She released another sigh directly into his ear. Harry bit his lip against a responding groan.

“Did you forget to water the stupid plant?” she asked, her tone confirming what Harry had always suspected; she didn't have the patience to be an Auror.

“If I confess, are you going to show me leniency?” he aimed for an amused tone, but Ginny's hips rolled against him as he spoke and his words came out audibly strained.

That small hint of weakness from him was enough for Ginny to regain some of her composure. Her smile was downright sinful as she pulled back from his neck, pausing with her face barely an inch from his. Her lips brushed softly against his as she spoke, “I never have before… but why don't you try it and see?”

Ignoring the suggestion, Harry surged forward, determined to turn her frustratingly light movements into a real kiss, but Ginny leaned back out of his reach. Her tongue darted out, licking against her maddeningly out of reach lips. One of her eyebrows quirked upwards, the gesture a silent command.

He hesitated for a moment, weighing his options, his gaze caught on Ginny's glistening mouth.

A second was all she allowed. One of her hands disentangled from his hair; her fingers slid down his neck, caressing against a spot beneath his ear where they both knew he particularly liked her mouth. “Of course, if this isn't working for me, I can try other, less physical methods to–”

“Guilty.”

Tne word burst from him before Harry could stop it. He couldn't really remember what he was confessing to anymore. He didn't care as long as Ginny was moving back towards him as she was currently doing, her sultry smile suggesting that he'd made the correct choice in letting her win this one. If this was the punishment –

“I'm definitely guilty.”

[four2andnew]

loml

One accidental love confession text message sends Harry's friends into a tizzy trying to figure out who he was confessing his love to. Except, Harry didn't even realize he was confessing his love in the first place. Social media/Text fic AU

read here on A03!

[four2andnew]

If you think Ginny could turn into a villain, would Harry and Ginny make a good Enemies to Lovers?

unfortunately it’s really hard for me to ever see harry and ginny as true enemies to lovers because no matter what ginny is doing harry is always going to be in the background going “you’re doing amazing sweetie!”

[four2andnew]

Harry ‘imagining Ginny in a wedding dress at the age of 17’ Potter

[four2andnew]

one mistake ppl make abt the golden trio is assuming they're couple + third wheel

WRONG

thats mama y papa and their kid who runs into danger way too often !!!

[four2andnew]

Pleaseee do Hinny art soon. I would love to see them in your style.

i’ve drawn hinny before hehe enjoy this doodle i did while listening to the audiobook of hbp:

i find them so cute sometimes

[four2andnew]

It's a Match! by takearisk

Harry and Ginny keep matching on dating apps. This goes on for several years. Will they ever move past their casual acquaintanceship and go on an actual date? (epistolary au)

read on ao3

[four2andnew]

Also how do you think ginny and Harry's marital life was? Did they get married early?Did Ginny sometimes resent her husband's profession? As a couple do you think they fought often?

Thanks so much for always replying to all the asks so wonderfully! You're so amazing!!!

I think Harry and Ginny's marital life was happy, of course! I think their marriage was a singular source of stability and renewing joy throughout their adult lives. (can you imagine if I was like... nah, it was garbage, divorce)

Without further ado... here's too many words and thoughts on Harry and Ginny's married life and careers, and some fic recs that have helped shape how I think about it dotted throughout. Come for the twee house descriptions, stay for the rant about neoliberal feminism at the end I guess!

On married life and the Potter household:

I love the idea of the Potters presiding over this ramshackle chaos household in big house near the sea, with a great big garden and treehouse for their kids and the cousins and various pets to maraud about all over the place. I actually think quite a lot about the house they'd be in. I love the idea of them building it from scratch, a big house with modern comforts but rustic, cosy, English country features, more horizontal than vertical (kind of farm/barn conversion vibes). In my mind, their house has lots of light, lots of beams and soft wood furnishings, and then a few quirky features and colours that are all Ginny's idea (Luna paints beautiful murals on each of the kids' walls). I imagine their house has lots of big windows with window seats so the adults can sit out and watch the kids play outside. I think the kitchen/dining room would be the heart of the house. Harry's doing the cooking, Ginny's writing at the table, kids are streaming in and out, it's just a real thoroughfare of teenagers and family friends and grandparents streaming through with the wireless on.

On marrying and having kids young:

I do really think Harry and Ginny got married early and had kids young. As I get older I only get more ok with that as a timescale for them. I think the intensity of their wartime experiences, their very involved role as godparents to Teddy (especially thinking maybe it might be nice for Teddy to have younger god-siblings), and their family reference points (both being from families where marrying young is quite normal, and where babies and toddlers are increasingly around a lot) are all factors that lend themselves to these two locking in in their early twenties. The pieces I love most on their marriage/babies etc are all ones that have a lot of humour and spontaneity and walk this gorgeous line between flippancy and total certainty - acesofdiamond's version of their wedding in Arran, Scotland, is canon to me, and also quickfire by flagpoles, on them having a shotgun wedding, is just so so so good and so them.

On Harry's career:

I think Ginny would understand why Harry chose the career he did, but I think it would be a source of tension for them. I'm thinking a lot about this at the minute for some writing (👀), but I think Harry as an adult would have to confront the fact that he intends to keep choosing to get back in the arena and fight Dark magic, this thing he does it to keep the people he loves safe but that also asks so much of the same loved ones who have to watch him do it. I think Ginny would try to push him to see that, but I don't think those would be easy conversations, and I do think it would be one of the things they argue most about on the occasions when they do, properly, fight. On the day to day, things they bicker over include: whose fault it is that the house is a mess (obviously it's both of them, plus the three messy children those two messy kids created); whose fault it is that the Potters are literally always late to everything (Harry blames Ginny, Ginny says the only reason he was ever on time before was because of Hermione, and he chose not to marry the punctual one so he just has to lump it); and Ginny losing her wand around the house/not keeping her wand on her (it takes Harry a long time to say it, but he's always just thinking of James on the sofa the night he died).

On Ginny's career:

I know this is a bit controversial, but I'm honestly happy with the idea of Ginny quitting playing professional Quidditch young. I think she quits after she has James, or maybe between Albus and Lily, so by the time she's about twenty four, twenty five. This is a bit of a soapbox one for me, and maybe one day I'll write about it in some form, but I think there's quite a lot to be said for freeing yourself from being accountable to career decisions and dreams you once had for yourself when you were seventeen, especially career plans that served as escape hatches from traumatic teen years (for the same reason, I like the idea of Ron quitting the Aurors after a few years). I think, as teenagers, we imagine futures for versions of ourselves we haven't met yet. Renegotiating your hopes and aspirations for yourself can be a real sign of growth; holding yourself hostage to who you thought you'd be can make you very miserable.

Relatedly, I do think Ginny in her mid-twenties might have a different relationship to her playing Quidditch than she has a teen. I think lot of her wanting to play professionally is about her having something to prove (I have also totally adopted the headcanon from this fantastic piece on Ginny wanting to be outdoors and in the air as a rejection of the chamber). It feels right to me that Ginny might reconsider her attitude to physical risk and injury by her mid-twenties, particularly if her children are watching her play an extremely dangerous sport week-in week out. I also think she might reconsider how much time she wants to spend away from her family. I wonder if Ginny would also develop a different relationship to the sport outside of a school context, especially the press scrutiny and the big business of sport on the outside. We know that when she quits playing, it's not the end of her professional life, and I think her writing about the sport, and being a voice in the culture of the sport but also in the Wizarding World at large, makes a ton of sense for her. But I think it's good to change jobs because what you want for yourself changes, and I really think it's not a feminist failing to want to spend time with your family and to look for jobs that are interesting and help give your life meaning but that also let you have a family life. It's boardroom girlboss neoliberal nonsense feminism that says wanting to spend time with your friends and family is less of a route to happiness than climbing up some horrendous hyper-individualist career ladder in pursuit of success (especially, in Ginny's case, in professional sport, where careers only ever end on a downturn).

Thank you anon for wanting to hear me bang on about all of this!

Fics mentioned here include:

dancing on to your heartbeat by aceofdiamonds - H/G wedding fic

quick-fire by flagpoles - H/G proposal and pregnancy fic

Little Sugar Men by dopeythedwarf - H/G, on Ginny and flying