#annerbfic

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I have posted chapter 10 of my @mdzsbigbang fic Tether. This chapter comes with lovely art from the amazing @alightbuthappypen! (How did I get so lucky to get so many pieces for this fic?!)

Enjoy!

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So who remembers the Four Seasons Landscaping press conference debacle of November 7th, 2020? You know, the one held across the street from the sex shop. And the endless memes after of “imagine your OTP: who owns the landscaping company and who owns the sex shop”?

Well, yeah, I wrote this thing for it a long while back. And yes, of course I made Harry work at the sex shop and Ginny at the landscaping company. Decided I should just schedule it to post on the next November 7th. Enjoy!

Come Again (Harry/Ginny, meet-cute, Harry works at a sex shop, bad flirting, Ginny��s into it anyway, non-magic world, Teen, no content warnings. Other than, you know, sex shop inventory!)

Harry glances up from his magazine at the sound of the shop door opening. He cursorily looks over the customer—young woman, mid-twenties, red hair, short, athletic build—before returning his attention to the magazine. He’s noticed most customers don’t particularly like the feeling of being watched. Some people flee immediately upon catching him watching them. Especially women.

Sure enough, out of the corner of his eye, he can see her slip down the aisle furthest from the cashier counter, the one full of costumes and larger objects far too difficult for anyone to steal.

“Harry?”

He looks over at Tara near the breakroom at the back where she’s pulling on her coat. “Are you off?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says, swinging her purse over her shoulder. “Are you sure it’s okay if I take Tuesday morning off?” She’s biting at her lower lip, as thinking his offer was somehow a trap. He wonders what kind of shit she had to put up with at her last job. Or it could just be him. Maybe she’s still trying to get used to him as their manager or something.

“Yes,” he says, forcing his voice patient. “Go get your tooth looked at. I’ll cover the shift, no problem.”

“Thank you,” she says in a rush. She glances over, catching sight of the ginger. “Want me to cover this one before I go?”

“I’ve got it,” he says, and it occurs to him that maybe she’s more nervous about leaving him to do the shift on his own than she is that he’s going to get mad at her for taking the time off.

He’d be offended by that if he hadn’t spent the last three weeks completely in over his head. But he’s starting to get the hang of it now.

Tara waves and leaves out the back.

“So you’re the owner then? You don’t look like a Luna.”

He turns to find the customer standing in front of him. He glances at the big sign out front declaring this store as Luna’s sex toys and more store.

“What? Oh,” he says. “No. I’m just filling in for her for a few months. She’s out on maternity leave. Twins.”

“Ah, so you’re just the understudy,” she says.

“Something like that.”

Pull yourself together, Potter.

“Then you’re…” She waves a finger around in a circle, encompassing the whole store. “In the business?”

He laughs. “No.” He realizes a moment too late how bad that sounded, and rushes on. “She was going to have to shut the shop down or cut her time home, but I’m between careers at the moment, so I figured I could cover for her.” He has no idea why he is spilling his life story out at her, and he considers that maybe Tara had seen what he hadn’t when she’d been so reluctant to leave him on his own. “It’s been a bit of a learning curve, I admit. Though mostly it seems to be about putting customers in categories and treating them accordingly.”

Her eyes narrow, as if sensing an insult towards the kind of people who might come to a shop like this. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“No,” he says, desperately trying to backpedal. “It’s just… Look. It’s like setting expectations? There’s people who come for joke gifts, the people who pretend they are here for joke gifts because they are too embarrassed to want to buy something, the people who know exactly what they want and get right to it, and the people who are here because of rebounds. Each kind of person would prefer to be treated differently: ignored, helped, given stern looks. So it’s just about figuring out which kind of customer they are, so I can make this easiest for them.”

The customer is now frowning at him. “You know that still sounds kind of creepy, even if it makes sense.”

“Studying people is kind of my thing.”

She only looks more alarmed.

“Not in a creepy stalker way! Or in a ‘I want to draw your picture’ way. I was a profiler. You know, criminals?”

“Ah, so now the customers are criminals.”

He would think he just can’t win with this maniacal customer, but she was smiling now, clearly teasing him. “Only if you try to walk off with Gary shoved down your shirt,” he gamely replies.

She turns to follow his gesture, letting out a low laugh at the sight of an enormous oversized novelty cock with a face on the tip. It’s not a ‘I’m nervous and about to break down into a fit of giggles’ laugh either, so Harry is pretty sure this is a customer who won’t mind being offered help.

“So is there anything in particular I can help you find?” he asks.

“You tell me.”

Said in any other tone, that might sound like a come on, but it was more challenging than coy. “Excuse me?” he asks.

“Am I here for a joke gift? Profile me.”

He looks her over, eyes lingering on the details. A new sweater (he could see the strip where the sticker had been removed very recently). Her hair looked freshly cut, the way she touched it said it was not the length she was used to, maybe having cut it off recently. There was the slightest indentation on her ring finger, a faint tan line.

“You’ve recently broken off a long-term relationship, either started when you were both very young, with someone who likes vanilla sex that you found boring, or with someone who was offended by the idea of you using any toys because it felt like cheating and made you get rid of them.”

She stares back at him, eyes wide.

He said it all without thinking, really, just speaking as it came to him, these thoughts about who she was that he might come up with about a case.

“Sorry,” he says, certain he’s just cost Luna a customer. “I’m sure I’m way off.”

“No,” she says, “you’re annoyingly on-point.”

He winces, realizing that’s probably even worse.

Definitely time to try to make a tactful retreat, if at all possible. But before he can back away, she’s speaking again.

“I used to have a Shibari before he made me toss it. Any thoughts on what might be like that? Only better. And bigger. Longer battery life.”

“Uh,” he says, floundering for a moment. Then he walks over to a shelf, pointing at a slim lavender-colored wand vibrator. “I can tell you the mini halo is really popular. But Luna always says it depends on what you’re looking for, not what other people want.”

Her eyebrow lifts, and it occurs to him that he has basically just asked for detail about her sex life. Yup. It’s possible he’s out of his element. He ends up texting Luna, for some reason not wanting to lead this particular customer astray. Not just because she seems pretty great. She deserves to get what she wants after all! Everyone does!

Getting tired of the back and forth, the customer eventually just grabs his phone and texts Luna directly, debating the finer points of the Soul Sucker. The woman’s smile—stupidly lovely, really—No, not appropriate, Harry!—is wider and wider as she gets into a really long exchange with Luna. Ending with a gasp of adoration when Luna apparently texts a picture of her sons.

The text exchange eventually dies down, the customer giving Harry a bald, assessing look.

“What?” he asks, refusing to shift back and forth on his feet, reminding himself of his long career as a criminal investigator—which would mean more if he hadn’t burned out and left with no real plans for anything else he’s going to do instead. Other than manage a sex toy store, apparently.

“She wants to know how you’re doing,” the woman asks. Her eyes narrow as she studies him a bit longer, and, shit, she should consider a career as an interrogator. She nods her head, like coming to a decision and then starts typing away again, this time narrating as she does.  “Approachable, only slightly creepy, blushes at a minimum, non-judgmental, but needs an education.”

He lets out a startled laugh, not offended in the least. Actually a better rating than he’d expect. “Trust me, every day in this shop is an education.”

Her eyebrow lifts. “I can only imagine.” She hands his phone back and sweeps up the Soul Sucker and the mini halo too.

Harry helpfully points out the displays of various lubes, letting her head over there by herself as he steps back behind the counter.

A guy comes in then, picking up a pre-order which is thankfully much more straight forward, a package already put together by Tara before she left.

By the time he’s done ringing him up, the woman has made her final selections, putting them down on the counter. He scans each one, slipping them into a bag without looking at them. Not his business!

“And with the five percent break up discount, that comes to….”

“Discount?” she asks. “I don’t need your pity.”

“What?” he asks, feeling like he’s messed up yet another thing. “No, seriously. It’s a thing.” He flips the card with five different set barcodes on it, handing it over to her.

You’re better off without them! – 5% Never too late to figure out what you like! – 5% Congrats on embracing your sexual identity! – 5% You’re a few bucks short, but still deserve joy – 5%

She looks at him in surprise.

He shrugs. “Luna.”

She seems to relax then. “Which one am I getting?”

“Does it matter?” he asks.

She lets out a huff. “Guess not.” She hands over a credit card and he really does his best not to look at her name or anything, but it is sort of a part of credit safety? Or something?

Ginny Weasley. Is her name. It sounds vaguely familiar, though he can’t quite place it.

She signs the receipt, and he passes over the bag. “Have a nice day,” he says, almost automatically.

“Oh, I’d better,” she says, lifting the bag.

He really tries not to blush. He really does. Professional, Potter. Real professional.

Only then she’s giving him a wink and walking towards the door. “Let me know if you ever need help with landscaping,” she says, “so I can return the favor.” 

Harry pauses at the strange words, frowning, resisting the urge to look down at his body.

She’s definitely laughing at him now. “The landscaping company next door? Weasley’s Landscaping? It’s where I work. The family business.”

“Oh,” Harry says with a sudden rush of understanding. She works right next door. Where he will likely see her. Again. Quite often. “Right. I definitely will.” 

“Great. See you around.”

He can’t help grinning. “Come again!” he calls out after her.

He can hear her laughter as the door shuts behind her.

It takes Harry a while to realize he’s humming as he starts taking stock of the strap-ons inventory.

Just another lovely day in Luna’s shop.

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It's posting day! I put up the first chapter for my fic written for the @mdzsbigbang

I'll be posting new chapters every Monday and Thursday. I hope you enjoy it!

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tether update when 👀

Uh, yeah. I really fell off my posting schedule there. Trying not to let the guilt bog me down on that one too much! The truth is that when I started posting the fic, I had like 14 or 15 chapters completely done already and I was like, no problem! That's months until I run out, I will definitely keep up.

Narrator voice: she did not, in fact, keep up

I lengthened the time between updates when I first realized I was in trouble in an attempt to stave this off, but alas, I still failed to make my posting deadline last week. Primarily thanks to a potent miasma of lack of time, lack of motivation, overabundance of the head games our inner critics like to play with us, and a dash of despair.

BUT! Progress has been made, inner critics have been stomped upon, a couple chapters have been wrested into rough draft, and I have hopes of resuming posting some time soon. I think I will avoid painting myself into another corner by saying when though.

Thanks for enjoying the fic enough to care one way or the other. It really does help a lot!

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hey annerb!! I remember reading a fic of yours once set after a quiddich gala?? I think it was smut although I'm not completely sure. I can't seem to find it. love your work!

Perhaps you mean this post. I posted the original fic to my AO3, but I think the smutty sequel only exists on tumblr.

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Helloooo, love your work :) a while ago, you had posted the nsfw sequel to “you don’t have to stay” on your tumblr…I tried searching for it but not able to find it… do you mind posting it again?

It is reblogged right in the original post! You can read it here.

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Hi there, ia there a link where we can find your fics?

My stuff's up on AO3:

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How can I read your work?? Like on ao3 or ffnet? I tried finding you but couldn't

I have my fics up both places. (Though more of them are up at A03 with the content and rating restrictions at ffnet.)

I'm Annerb at AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annerb/pseuds/Annerb

And at ffnet: https://www.fanfiction.net/~annerb

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how you get the girl

(Harry/Ginny, meet-cute, muggle AU)

the ice-skating ring is full of fumbling people, but Ginny finds one person in extra need of help

Hot Dad is back again, Ginny texts Demelza.

Putting down her phone, she sells a round of tickets to a loud group of teenagers, passing them off to Stephanie to get them set up with skates. Their cheeks are all red with the cold evening air, the sun having just dipped behind the buildings. Mariah Carey is crooning about Christmas over the slightly staticky speakers. It’s all perfectly cheery and lovely, and even Ginny can’t help but smile at it, this season long having been a favorite of hers, no matter how old she gets.

Which probably explains how after working full days, she still lets herself get dragged into volunteering at the seasonal outdoor ice-skating rink set up in the old city center as a way to earn money for various local charities. She’s an easy mark, which her friend running the event never fails to capitalize on.

The obvious first-date skaters are the best in the evenings, the romanticism of the idea wearing off real quick the first time one of them knocks the other down and their asses get real familiar with the unforgiving ice. Ginny likes the look on their faces when she offers them one of the walkers little kids use sometimes.

Her phone buzzes with Demelza’s response.

Okay either bang him or stop texting me because this is pathetic and you know it.

Ginny sighs. I imagine his exceptionally beautiful wife would have a problem with that.

The wife you have no idea if exists or not? Seriously, I don’t have time for this. You’re cut off talking about this.

I need a new friend.

Ha! Good luck with that.

Ginny tosses her phone down in disgust. The worst part is that Demelza is right. This is beneath her dignity. But Hot Dad has been here with his son the last four nights straight, and selling tickets and collecting used equipment isn’t all that engrossing, especially considering Ginny is one of dozens of volunteers. Meaning she has a lot of time to stare and let her imagination get away with her. And her imagination’s favorite subject these days is Hot Dad. Once again here tormenting her as he wobbles around the rink with his son. 

She can’t really tell how old he is, a knit beanie always pulled low over his head and a beard covering his face. He’s got glasses too. None of which makes it hard to see how attractive he is. (One time he forgot his scarf and she nearly had to take a break when he laughed at his son and the tendons in his neck stood out as he threw his head back and she thought how lick-able it looked.) He’s on the lanky side, which on skates occasionally makes him look like a newborn wobbly-legged foal, and even that is somehow charming.

Or Ginny is just really hard up and needs to get a life. Which is what Demelza loves to say. Also that Ginny is a workaholic. And sure, it’s been a hot minute since her last date. She just has a lot going on right now. Besides, this guy is definitely more than likely married.

So instead, she is going to happily, harmlessly ogle Hot Dad while he stumbles around the rink with his son, who has shown little to no improvement over the last week. In fact, if possible, they both seem to be getting worse.

Fifteen minutes later, Hot Dad nearly takes out a pair of teenaged girls, blocking the entire flow of skaters as he stops to thoroughly apologize while his son stands nearby and nearly laughs himself down onto the ice. And then actually goes down onto the ice.

Jesus.

Talk about the blind leading the blind. They’re going to cause a pile-up, she tells herself. It’s the only reason she grabs a pair of skates and heads over to help.

Really.

“Excuse me,” she says as she approaches.

He looks up and, shit, his eyes are like the most intense green she’s ever seen, and also, he’s definitely younger than she first thought, closer to her own age. But also young enough that he must have been Hot Young Teen Dad when his kid was born. But still just as hot as she imagined him to be.

Dammit.

“Not that I don’t admire your persistence,” she says, helping the kid to his feet, “but you two are rapidly becoming a hazard.”

Hot Dad straightens his glasses, looking sheepish. “We definitely are. But it’s an emergency, I’m afraid.”

“An emergency?” Ginny asks, trying to ignore the thrill of finally hearing his voice for the first time. And what a nice voice it is.

He grins. “Ted’s trying to impress a girl.”

“Harry!” the kid shrieks, looking mortified.

Ginny blinks, both cataloging Hot Dad’s name—Harry—and noticing the strange use of it by his son. Maybe he’s in that rebellious teenage phase where he calls his parents by their first names?

He’s still wearing gloves, dammit. Not that it matters. She doesn’t have time for Hot Maybe Married Dad right now.

Really.

“And you’re somehow supposed to help with that?” she shoots back before she can think better of it.

But rather than looking offended, Hot Dad—Harry—just grins back at her. “A hopeless case, I suppose.”

“Depends on how this is meant to impress a girl.”

“He’s going to ask her out for the first time,” Harry says, smiling at his son as Ted looks even more mortified.

“To go ice skating,” Ginny surmises. “Have you considered the movies, or frozen yogurt or, I dunno, anything not on ice?”

Ted shakes his head, looking earnest in the way only a young teen can. “It has to be ice skating.”

Ginny sighs. “I suppose I could give you some pointers. At least keep you from being a total disgrace.”

The kid gives her a dubious look. “You think you could?”

Oh, now it’s on. “You doubt me?” she asks, pushing back on her skates. Without another word, she does a quick tick around the circle, doing the second half backwards. With a quick spin, she comes to stop in front of them at the last possible moment in a showy shower of ice shavings.

Harry looks impressed, eyebrows lifted. “Were you a skater?”

“Hockey,” she says succinctly, used to people making assumptions. Then again, she’s hardly a delicate thing to be twirling around in tutus. Not that she couldn’t if she wanted to, thank you very much. But she’s more into smacking people with sticks than doing toe loops.

“I think this is your best hope, Ted,” Harry says. “The ice angels have smiled down on you.”

Ginny bites back the urge to clarify that she is in no way an angel and would be happy to prove it to him. Instead, she focuses on the kid, who she can’t look down on all that much considering he’s nearly at her height already.

“What do you say?”

Ted lets out a breath. “Please.”

She smiles. “Okay. But before we start, I need to know one thing. This girl you’re asking out. What are you going to do if she says no?”

His eyes widen, giving Harry a panicked look. “Oh, god. Is she going to say no?”

He pats his shoulder. “I think she’s more trying to make sure you aren’t going to use her powers for evil.”

“Pretty much,” Ginny says.

“I don’t understand,” Ted says, brow furrowed.

Ah, the innocence of youth.

“For example.” Harry turns towards Ginny. “I don’t think I got your name?”

“Ginny,” she says, trying to ignore the quiver she feels as his gaze falls intently on her.

He smiles, holding out his hand. She slips her gloved hand into his, shaking firmly. “Nice to meet you, Ginny. I’m Harry.”

“Hello, Harry,” she says, their hands still clasped between them.

He places his other hand on the back of hers, the gesture somehow endearing even as it’s terribly old-fashioned. “Would you go to dinner with me?”

She nearly blurts out a yes before remembering that they are playacting. And he’s probably married. And they’re standing in front of his son. “Sorry,” she says. “Dating customers is against the rules.”

Harry smiles at her—fuck, that is not okay. “Okay,” he says, letting go of her hand. “Sorry if I bothered you. I hope you have a great day.”

“You, too,” she says.

Harry turns back to his son. “There you go.”

“But that wasn’t a no,” Teddy points out.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “It was. If someone wants to go out with us, they’ll say yes. She doesn’t have to explain why or justify it. Plus, do you really want to go out with someone you had to convince?”

Okay, and now Ginny is not just lusting after him, but a little bit in love with the asshole too.

“No,” Ted says, frowning. “I guess not. But what would you do now?”

Harry puts a hand to his chest like he’s nursing a painful wound. “We slink back to our caves like men, feel sorry for ourselves for a little bit, and then pretend it never happened. And definitely don’t ask again.”

“But she’s at my school! I’ll see her every day. Won’t that be weird?”

Ginny expects a pep talk, don’t worry, of course she’ll say yes, but instead Harry slings an arm over Ted’s shoulders. “It might be weird for a while, I admit. But don’t be a pain in the ass and you’ll both get over it. Of course, she might also say yes. Is the potential weirdness and embarrassment worth the chance that she might say yes?”

A look of determination crosses his features. “Yeah,” he says, nodding. “It’s worth her maybe saying no, if it means she might also say yes.”

“Well then, I think you have your answer.”

And now Ginny is pretty much fully in love with him. Ugh, her life is the worst.

“Come on,” she says, gesturing for Ted to come closer. “Let’s try a few rounds.”

She spends the next fifteen minutes giving him a few key pointers, enough that he’s not a complete hazard, but he’s still a long way from dating form. For one, the kid appears to have two left feet. Which, once he warms up to her a bit (and informs her that he much prefers to go by Teddy), his clumsiness pales in comparison to his general politeness and wicked sense of humor. She’s not sure what he’d say if she said those were going to go a lot further for him than his ice-skating skills.

They eventually come back to a stop next to Harry where he waits against the wall off to one side. They’ve just made it when Teddy careens over and nearly face plants into the ice. Harry reaches out for him, only to almost lose his own footing.

What a pair, Ginny thinks, not even bothering to hold back her laughter.

“Your son seems to have inherited your clumsiness,” she says once they are all steadily on their feet again.

Harry laughs, beaming at Teddy, but the kid just lets out a dismissive sound. “He’s not my dad. As if.”

“You could only be so lucky,” Harry says, ruffling the kid’s hair. “Remus may be smarter than me, but I am far better at pretty much anything requiring coordination.”

“That remains to be seen,” Ginny says, Teddy letting out an appreciative laugh.

Harry lifts an eyebrow, like maybe she’s twinged his ego. “Ice is not my natural environment.”

“Really,” she drawls. “Then what is your natural environment?”

“Pretty much anything but ice. I’m not picky,” he says, and somehow the unspoken arrogance is attractive. 

Ginny tilts her head to the side. “I think I’d need proof to be able to judge that adequately.”

“Would you,” he says, voice lowering.

Fuck, the ice should be melting in here.

They hold each other’s gazes a bit longer than is probably proper, Teddy looking between them.

Ginny gives herself a little shake, turning back to the kid. “So, Teddy. I have some bad news and some good news.”

“Okay,” he says, looking wary.

“The bad news is that winter is likely to end before you master ice skating. I mean, you can keep trying. You’ll get better just through practice. But it’s going to take a while.”

He sighs, apparently not horribly surprised to hear it. “And the good news?”

“Well, why do you want to take this girl ice skating?”

“Because she loves ice skating.”

“Is she good?”

He nods. “She’s really good.”

“There’s your good news. And because I like you, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Tell her you’d like to take her ice skating because you know she likes it so much. And then tell her that you aren’t very good, but you’re willing to try and you’d appreciate it if she’d help you. Basically, what I am saying is don’t try to hide that you aren’t great at this yet. Just focus on enjoying being there with her. Honest is so much better than cool.”

She expects him to fight that, but instead he looks thoughtful, eventually nodding. “Okay.” He turns to Harry. “Can we be done now? My butt is so cold I can’t feel it anymore.”

Harry ruffles his hair again. “Yeah. I’ll take you home.”

Teddy heads off towards the exit, and he has improved at least a little bit, Ginny notices as she follows slightly behind. Harry keeps pace with her, even as he wobbles his way along, never more than an arm’s length from the edge.

“That was some good advice,” he says. 

“Well,” Ginny says, “what’s the point of suffering through all that teenage angst if not to try to save the younger generation from repeating your mistakes?”

Harry laughs. “I hear that.”

They sit on the benches, pulling off their skates.

“I can take your skates here,” she says, stepping back behind the counter, ignoring the person already waiting to run this part of the booth.

He hands the skates up over the counter. His gloves are off now and she can see his perfectly naked fingers. Interesting.

“Thanks,” Teddy says.

“Good luck!” she calls out after him.

He waves, heading for the exit.

Harry lingers another moment, pulling his beanie off and revealing dark hair in complete disarray. “I’m realizing I’ve backed myself into a corner,” he says, leaning against the counter.

“How exactly?” she asks.

He drags a hand through his hair. “Because I can’t very well ask you out again without being a hypocrite.”

“Hmm,” she says, nodding solemnly at him. “That is a tricky spot you’ve put yourself in. I suppose sometimes it’s hard to live by our principles.”

He gives her a sad, lopsided smile. “You have no idea.” He pushes back from the counter. “It was nice meeting you, Ginny.”

“You, too, Harry,” she says.

He turns and walks away. Ginny eyes his ass, and, god, it really is a thing of beauty. He doesn’t even look back, and he’s going to do it. He’s really just going to leave her alone.

Amazing.

She counts three long beats before coming around to the other side of the counter and calling out after him. “Harry.”

He stops, turning back to look at her, waiting for her to catch up.

“For the record,” she says, “dinner never would have worked.”

“Sure,” he says, hands in his pockets.

“I already ate, and I’m stuck here until nine,” she says. “How about I buy you a drink instead?”

“You sure?” he says, voice slightly teasing. “Because I’d hate to have a date who had to be convinced.”

“Oh, believe me,” Ginny says. “You don’t need to do any convincing.”

He looks delighted, a smile lighting up his face, and Ginny is still having a hard time believing he’s real. “I’ll swing back around at nine them.”

She nods. “Looking forward to seeing you in your natural environment,” she drawls, giving him a wink.

He almost immediately nearly bumps into a trash can.

She lifts an eyebrow at him, but he just shakes his head. “Still shaking off the ice-skating legs.”

“Of course,” she says.

“Harry!” Teddy shouts from the exit.

“Coming!” Harry yells back. He looks at her. “Nine.”

She nods. “Nine.”

Giving her one last lingering look, he turns, giving her a great view as he walks away. Once out on the sidewalk, she can see Harry wrap his arm around Teddy’s neck, giving him a playful noogie as the kid fights him off.

Ginny smiles, watching them disappear before heading back to her station.

Back behind the counter, she picks up her phone, pulling up her conversation with Demelza.

Hot dad is not a dad at all, is gloriously single, and I am seeing him at nine tonight.

Get it, girl.

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Hi Just recently discovered ur fics. LOVED gone was any trace of u. Do u have other fics where ginny and harry are married?

I don’t have any other married fics. I do have some established relationship ones (like i’m not on drugs, i’m just in love and you don’t have to stay and i just really need you here right now)

I don’t think I do a lot of established relationship fic. Which I would say is weird except like a lot of shippers, I am all about the 1001 ways these two idiots get together genre of fic.

Have you read the It’s Tea Time series by ellizablue? Really great married Harry/Ginny set post Cursed Child (which for the record I still have never read or seen, but still enjoyed this fic.)

[annerb-fic]

Lucky

- part one

- part two

- part three

- part four

- part five

- part six

- part seven

- part eight

- part nine

Part Ten

As they settle in for their first weekend in the Burrow, Ginny is pleased to see that Ron is behaving himself for the most part.

Soon enough he and Harry seem as chummy as ever. And, no, she is not warmed by their ridiculous friendship and how happy it clearly makes both of them just to be around each other. Mostly because Ron has also done everything he can to ensure that Harry and Ginny are never alone for even a minute.

Though it’s Molly who puts a ward across Ginny’s door.

“I’m very happy for you too,” she says, patting Ginny’s hand. “But there will be no nonsense under my roof.”

Ginny bites back the impulse to ask what she means by nonsense. Or more importantly, just what kind of things Molly herself got up to her fifth year to make her so suspicious.

Ron seems to have restrained himself from teasing Harry about the ward, probably rightly realizing he would be mortified if he knew. No, Ron saves the teasing all for her, the git.

But no one is mad or upset or making Harry feel bad, so not being able to find a minute to kiss him again the last 36 hours seems a small enough price to pay. Or so she tells herself.

Ron and Harry are currently at the sink, trimming sprouts, while Ginny sets the table. Harry is filling Ron in on everything they overheard Draco say the night of the party.

Ron glances back at her near the beginning of the recitation—though whether because he isn’t certain she should hear this or because he’s questioning her loyalties, she doesn’t know, because Harry says, “Ginny was there too, she heard it.”

Harry seems glad to have someone to back him up, especially since Ron seems dubious. Not that Ginny doesn’t have to correct Harry a few times when he overstates things.

“It’s definitely suspicious though!” Harry says.

“Yes,” Ginny agrees. “It is.” She still intends to give it the proper thought it deserves, though she’s still not sure what business it is of hers, what Draco may or may not be getting up to. If he’s a Death Eater.

“I take it Malfoy isn’t shouting about his evil plans in the Slytherin common room then,” Ron says, looking back at her.

“No,” Ginny says. “He’s rarely there from what I’ve seen.”

“See!” Harry says, grabbing onto the tidbit with typical zeal. “Suspicious!”

“But I’m not there much either,” she feels the need to clarify. “So maybe I’ve just missed him.”

“You aren’t?” Ron asks. “Why not? I mean, it’s not my favorite place, but I don’t remember it being that unpleasant.”

Ginny’s eyes narrow. “When have you ever been in the Slytherin common room?”

Ron and Harry share shifty glances.

“Uh, never,” Ron says. “Just guessing, really.”

Ginny looks at Harry, daring him to lie to her as blatantly as her brother just did.

He glances uneasily between the two of them. “Our second year,” he says, Ron immediately groaning and shoving at Harry’s shoulder.

“Whipped already,” Ron mutters.

Harry glares at him. “You want me to lie to her?”

“Fine,” Ron says. “We made polyjuice to get in. We thought maybe Malfoy was the one opening the chamber.”

Ginny feels something cold slide down her spine. “Oh.” She shoves the feeling down and away. Away, away, away. When she can breathe again, she says, “Right house, wrong person, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” Ron says, having the grace to look uncomfortable. “Guess so.”

Harry’s looking at her too, but she can’t quite get herself to meet his gaze. “Well, what I’m hearing from this new tidbit is that this is hardly the first time you’ve suspected Draco of some evil plot.”

Ron snorts. “Harry pretty much suspects him of an evil plot every year.”

Harry scowls. “That’s not true. And besides, this year we already have proof!”

“One conversation is hardly proof,” Ron says.

“What about Borgin and Burke’s?”

“We all agreed we didn’t clearly see anything there. And you told Dumbledore, didn’t you? He didn’t think it was anything.”

“Which is stupid!” Harry exclaims. “I mean, the thing with Katie too!”

It does seem like a lot of suspicious things happening around Draco. But hearing that Harry spoke with Dumbledore and was dismissed is just as interesting. Unless he’s exaggerating that too. “Maybe they’re already doing something about it,” Ginny says. “The teachers. And they don’t want you getting in the way.”

Harry turns, opening his mouth with clear outrage, but she cuts across him before he can speak. “I’m not saying that’s right or okay, I’m just saying maybe it’s what they think.”

He gives her a mulish look, taking it out on the poor sprouts.

The conversation doesn’t go any further, the twins bursting into the kitchen a moment later. They come up behind Ron, arms thrown over his shoulders. “What is this we hear about you and a certain Lavender Brown?”

“What?” Ron sputters.

Fred leans in closer. “Sucking face every available moment?”

Ron’s ears burn an alarming shade of red, craning his head around to look at Ginny. “I can’t believe you told them!” 

She lifts her hands. “I didn’t.”

“Oh, no,” Fred confirms. “Our slippery little sister has failed us on that account. We heard it from a very reliable source. A Gryffindor source.”

Ginny rolls her eyes.

George nods. “Third-hand from someone who witnessed it first-hand!”

“Though from what we’ve heard,” Fred adds, “there is no one at Hogwarts who has not witnessed it first-hand.”

Ron pushes them off him, beginning to look desperate. “I think you should be a bit more concerned with who Harry has been snogging!”

“Wow,” Ginny says. “I thought Gryffindor were supposed to be brave. Way to throw your best mate to the skrewts.”

But Ron’s desperate ploy pays off immediately, the twins off and running, and nothing in the world to stop them as they turn on Harry instead.

George looks delighted. “Has little Harry caught himself a paramour at long last as well? What a bumper year for Gryffindor year six!”

Fred leans into Harry. “Has the Chosen One been chosen?”

“Tell us, Harry,” George says.

“Someone slip something into your pumpkin juice?” Fred asks.

Harry scowls. “Of course not.”

“Ah, a bit touchy,” George says, looking over at Fred. “He must really like this girl. It is a girl, isn’t it?”

“Does she know what a scrawny git you are?”

“Hopefully she doesn’t assume the Boy-Who-Lived is suave and cool.”

“Maybe she’s impressed by his Quidditch skills.”

“Likes a bloke who can handle his broom.”

Harry may look like he wants to die and sink into the floor, but Ron is the one looking more and more miserable the longer the twins talk. Serves him right.

Ginny just leans back, content to let them dig a hole as deep as possible for themselves.

“Tell us, Harry,” George insists.

“What’s she like?” Fred asks.

“Easy on the eyes?”

“A scintillating conversationalist?” Fred wags his eyebrows.

“Yes, tell us, Harry,” Ginny breaks in, feeling inexplicably perverse. “Is she a good kisser?”

The twins crow in approval, giving her proud looks as she appears to jump on to the ‘give Harry shit’ train.

Harry’s the one to turn and look at her in surprise, but she just lifts her eyebrow in challenge.

“No need to be bashful,” she says, fighting hard to keep a smile off her face.

He regards her a moment, like he’s trying to figure out what game she’s playing. “A gentleman never tells.”

The twins groan.

“Nice save,” Ginny says, rather pleasantly remembering their leisurely afternoon on the train.

“Pathetic,” Fred accuses.

“Well, it’s all I’ll say about it,” Harry says, even as a slow grin curves his lips like maybe he’s thinking about it to. Ginny gets stuck staring at his mouth for a moment.

Fred hoots with laughter. “From the look on his face, I’d say that’s a strong yes.”

“A very strong yes,” George agrees.

“You guys—” Ron tries to interrupt, looking more and more pained. But Ginny has no intention of letting him help the twins out of this before she’s good and ready.

“Ron,” she cuts across him. “Don’t be a spoilsport. We all want to know about Harry’s mystery woman.” She leans forward on her elbow, propping her chin up on her hand. “Go on, Harry. Enlighten us.”

“Yes, do tell,” George says.

“We want details,” Fred agrees.

Ginny settles back to wait, more curious to hear what he’ll say than she probably should be.

“Well,” Harry says, once he realizes Ginny has no intention of rescuing him from this, “she’s definitely got a wicked sense of humor. Downright depraved some might say.”

Ginny fights hard to keep her countenance, and Harry can clearly tell, a small smirk on his face, like maybe he’s settling in to enjoy himself. It only makes her want to kiss him more.

“Good, good,” Fred says. “It’s important to find someone capable of taking a joke.”

Harry nods. “Yes, well, she doesn’t take shit from anyone either. Especially me.” He pauses, his eyes lighting up with mischief. “Best of all, she’s almost as good as I am at Quidditch.”

“Almost?” Ginny says, forgetting herself.

“Also,” Harry continues, clearly either not recognizing or just unmoved by the murder in her eyes, “even though she would deny it with her dying breath, she is just as competitive as any Gryffindor.”

“You take that back,” she says, eyes narrowing.

Harry leans against the sink, grinning at her as he crosses his arms over his chest, clearly proud to have gotten a rise out of her. “Make me.”

Ginny pushes to her feet. “Oh, it’s on. You, me, brooms, the paddock. Now.”

“Wait, what?” she hears George say, but she’s far too focused on Harry to care.

“It’s nearly dark!” Ron tries to reason. “And cold!”

“So what?” Harry says, clearly just as keen. 

“Yeah,” Ginny says. “Fred and George will help you finish up the sprouts. Won’t you, brother dears?” Crossing over to Harry, she grabs the front of his shirt, tugging him towards the back door. “Harry and I have a few things to take care of.”

They are walking out the door when she hears George says, “What the hell?”

“You mean Harry and Ginny—?” Fred starts to say, voice incredulous.

The door shuts, cutting off any further conversation.

Harry shakes his head as he follows her out into the garden. “I meant it. Depraved.”

“You had just as much fun with that, admit it,” Ginny says, leading him around towards the front of the house until they are out of view of the kitchen windows. 

“Depraved,” he repeats, even as he reaches for her waist, like it’s also occurred to him that this is the first time they’ve been alone since they arrived.

“And a really good kisser?” she asks, her hand sneaking up behind his neck, Quidditch already forgotten. Or rather put off for another day. She has no intention of forgetting it.

“Yeah,” he says, “not a competitive bone in your body.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

“I should have added bossy,” he says, not giving her a chance to respond before he’s kissing her. 

And god, it’s almost better that she remembers, her entire body tingling as he kisses and kisses and kisses her, brothers and mysteries and competitions all completely forgotten. Neither of them even paying any attention to the two soft cracks nearby as more people arrive.

“So was anyone going to tell me that Harry and Ginny are together?” they hear Bill ask loudly as he wrenches open the front door to the Burrow. “Or was I just supposed to walk by them snogging in the garden to figure it out?”

[annerb-fic]

Hi! I just discovered your blog and I’ve seen people praising your fics(?) that are ‘Lucky’ and ‘Changeling’? Sorry if I said it wrong! Anyways, I wanted to know if you could link me the fics so I could read them! Thank you :)

Hi, welcome! All of my fic is up on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annerb/pseuds/Annerb

The Changeling is a Slytherin!Ginny AU that has three follow up stories. Lucky is actually a silly alternate version of parts of The Changeling I wrote for kicks, if that makes any sense at all.

Happy reading!

[annerb-fic]

Lucky

- part one - part two - part three - part four - part five -

Part Six

Harry watches Snape lead Malfoy out of the party, his eyes narrowing.

What the hell is Malfoy doing skulking around the party? He isn’t even dressed for a party, and Harry doesn’t believe for a second that he was just trying to sneak in. Malfoy is glaring daggers at Snape, and Harry doesn’t even think twice about following, absently setting the two goblets in his hands down on a table.

This could be his chance to finally find out exactly what is going on, and what Snape has to do with it. To prove he isn’t imagining all of this.

He ignores one of Slughorn’s guests trying to catch his attention, pausing in the hall outside as he tries to figure out which direction they’ve gone in. He heads down one way before deciding he must have chosen wrong, doubling back at a fast clip. He slips his hand down into his pocket, groping for his invisibility cloak and pulling it free.

Before he can flip it up over his head, he hears a voice from behind him.

“Going somewhere?”

Harry stumbles to a stop, turning towards the entrance to Slughorn’s rooms. Ginny stands there, still looking more beautiful than anyone has a right, only now there is something not quite right about the way she’s holding her body.

Shit. Ginny. His date. How could he have possibly forgotten?

“No,” he says, despite how blatantly untrue that clearly is.

“Right,” she says, her face impassive, none of the warmth that had been there earlier. But there’s also something in her eyes that makes his gut burn.

“I just need to do something really fast,” he says, the excuse feeling weak and stupid the second he says it.

“Just going to the loo, huh?” she asks, lips twisting. It’s clear she knows exactly what he’s doing out here. She would have seen Malfoy like everyone else. Besides, one hardly needs an invisibility cloak for peeing.

“I’ll come back,” he says, furiously torn between losing Malfoy and pissing Ginny off. If it weren’t so important, he’d never…

“Don’t strain yourself on my account,” she says, voice clipped and icy. She turns, but rather than walking back towards the party, she heads down the hall, like maybe she’s leaving.

Shit, shit, shit, Harry thinks, glancing down in the opposite direction.

On impulse, he darts forward, grabbing Ginny’s hand, and setting back down the hallway with her in tow.

She protests, but he shushes her, nearly breaking into a run, trying to be as quiet as possible. Ginny is clearly unhappy, but he also trusts she won’t blow their cover when they aren’t supposed to be out here and might get detention for it. No, she’ll save yelling and hexing him for later.

They pass by a row of classrooms, Harry pausing briefly to listen outside each. Just as he’s starting to get desperate, he pauses outside the last door in the hallway, catching Snape and Malfoy’s voices, pressing his ear against the wood, able to hear everything they are saying.

He looks at Ginny, still standing in the middle of the hall. He waves her closer, lifting the invisibility cloak.

For a second he thinks she will refuse, her jaw set, but then she’s crouching down next to him, her ear pressing to the door.

He flips the cloak over the two of them, and settles in to listen, his face just a few inches from Ginny’s.

“…cannot afford to make mistakes, Draco, because if you are expelled—” Snape is saying.

Harry presses his ear closer.

*     *     *

Ginny’s shoe is cutting into her heel in a highly unpleasant way as she crouches next to Harry, listening to Snape admit to things like Unbreakable Vows and Malfoy talking about serving his master. It’s a lot, and Ginny’s barely taking it in at the moment, to be honest, too caught up in the stupid, stupid truth she should have seen from the start.

Which is only harder to deal with, Harry’s knee pressed up against her, his hand only inches from hers on the door.

Draco’s voice is coming closer, and Harry’s eyes widen in alarm, but then he’s grabbing her, surging up and pushing her firmly back against the wall right next to the door. He ends up pressed completely against her as the door swings open, barely missing them, and for a moment Ginny’s brain completely fizzles out.

Draco storms by without so much as a look in their direction. Harry lets out a breath, the air rustling the hair framing Ginny’s face, and that does absolutely nothing at to help. Harry looks down at her, only now seeming to realize their current position. His mouth opens like he might apologize, but she presses her hand to his mouth as Snape finally steps out into the hall as well.

Snape lingers a moment, staring off into the direction Draco disappeared, and Ginny doesn’t even dare breath, or think about Harry’s lips against her palm, the unreal amount of heat he seems to be giving off. It’s a really sodding inconvenient moment to register the warm woody smell that must be him or his soap or something, but either way, it’s making her dizzy.

Focus, Ginny.

Snape finally turns, heading back towards Slughorn’s party and disappearing inside.

Ginny lets out a breath, pulling her hand down from Harry’s mouth, fingers registering the slight roughness of his chin.

“Ginny,” he says. “Did you—"

“Not here,” Ginny hisses, wondering if he takes pride in getting caught.

He nods, glancing back in the direction of the party. “Cloister?”

She doesn’t exactly feel like going back to the party anyway, she tells herself, so it’s stupid to feel disappointed that this particular misguided evening is clearly at an end.

She nods.

Fortunately, it’s not too far because there is no way for them to walk under the cloak together, at least not any way for Ginny to feel comfortable doing it. Harry walks at a fast pace, his eyes bright with a strange sort of intensity that leaves Ginny feeling inexplicably disgruntled.

They’ve no more than stepped inside the cloister when Harry flings the cloak aside and crows, “I knew it!” He strides across the space. “I knew he was up to something. And Snape is in on it! You heard him! Serving his master. And I don’t believe him for a second that he wasn’t behind what happened to Katie. He was clearly lying, the slimy git.”

And so he goes on, repeating almost everything they heard with such zeal and conviction, that she rather quickly feels like he’s forgotten she’s even here. She wonders if she got up and left if he’d even notice. 

She tells herself she’s being petty, the rational part of her brain pointing out that the overheard conversation was definitely worth being picked over. Potentially damning on many levels. She hasn’t even begun to process it, to be honest. But all she can think about is what a nice time they’d had, what it had felt like when Harry pushed her back against the wall. The way even now as he paces and rants, what a dashing figure he cuts in his dress robes, and Ginny fully realizes in that moment what a complete fool she is. How much she’s let her feelings get away from her.

It had felt so…good, being at the party with him. But clearly it hadn’t meant as much to him. She was foolish to think it had. She can’t help but think of him offering to walk her back to her compartment on the train all those long months ago, realizing all he’d wanted to do was spy on Draco. Being with her had been beside the point entirely.

Her chest fills with a sharp pain, wondering if she is destined to make the same stupid mistakes when it comes to Harry Potter. This was hardly a real date, Ginny. You were convenient.

Pushing to her feet, she walks towards the exit. She’s a writhing roiling mess right now and wants nothing more than to escape. To take the time to think about this clearly. Because if she has to try to talk right now, she’s bound to say something she really, really regrets.

She hasn’t made it all that far when Harry calls out after her. “Where are you going?”

“Back to my room,” she says, not even able to look back at him right now.

He catches up to her, his hand on her arm, looking concerned like he actually cares. “Now? Already? If you’d rather go back to the party—”

“Why did you really ask me to go with you tonight?” she asks before she can stop herself.

“What?” Harry asks, eyes shifting to side with clear guilt, and that’s it, that’s the last straw.

“Trying to get yourself a Slytherin spy to watch Draco for you?” she asks. “Going to ask me to sneak you into the common room?”

He blinks. “No. That is not why I asked you.”

She shakes her head, not particularly in the mood to hear any more. “Sure,” she says, pulling her arm free and moving for the exit.

“It’s not,” Harry insists, still pressing and why can’t he just let her leave? 

“Then why?”

“Because I bloody like you!” he very nearly shouts at her.

Ginny stills, feeling the anger melt almost instantly into something else. Something much worse. She slowly turns to look back at him. “What?”

Harry closes his eyes, blowing out a breath and stepping closer to her. “Because I like you, and if you’d gone with someone else, I’d have been tempted to set birds after them.”

Ginny feels her heart pounding away in her chest, even as her mind struggles to process that. “There’s no accounting for taste,” she quips, because she’s stupid.

Harry’s face just absolutely falls, like puppy that’s just been unexpectedly kicked. He turns away, sitting down on a tumbled marble block.

“Harry,” she says, taking a step towards him, even as she has no idea what to say.

“You really don’t think much of me, do you,” he says. 

Ginny shakes her head, even as shame floods her body.

“First that I’d cheat you in the match. Now that I’d only ask you to the party to get you to do something for me.”

“That’s not true,” she says, not appreciating him turning this back around on her. She’s not the one who almost ditched him to go spy on an inane arch-nemesis, or whatever the hell Draco is to him.

He gives her a look of disbelief. “Yeah, it is. You were even suspicious of why I’d want to help Reiko with Quidditch!”

She wants to deny it, but the inescapable truth is that she does always seem to jump to the worst conclusions around him. “Maybe I do,” she forces herself to admit. “But it’s not because I think poorly of you.”

She can tell he doesn’t believe it. “Then why?”

Because it’s far easier to believe the bad things of him than to believe he actually likes her. Despite the fact that he just rather clearly told her that. Shouted it, really.

“Because I like you too,” she admits, knowing she’s felt this way far longer than she’s ever been willing to admit. Because it never mattered. It was never going to happen. Never could happen. So why be weak enough to want it? “And it’s easier to think those bad things than accept that you might…like someone like me.”

Harry’s pushed back to his feet. “Someone like you?”

She lifts her chin. “A Slytherin.”

“I don’t care,” he says.

She laughs. “You mean you’ll overlook it.”

He walks towards her. “No. That’s not—Merlin, I’m mucking this up. You were right, what you said last year. About seeing all Slytherin the same. I know that.”

“And yet you would have left me there,” she says, horrified to feel the prick of tears in her eyes. “For everyone to see.”

He lets out a sound of frustration. “I would have come back.”

“Would you?” she asks, not so certain herself. Harry is apparently willing to forget absolutely everything else when it comes to catching Draco or Snape doing something wrong. 

He looks ready to immediately confirm it but has the grace to hesitate as if really thinking about it. “I don’t know. But I do know I would have felt like a right arse about it if I hadn’t.”

She lets out a humorless laugh. “I suppose that’s something.”

His jaw clenches. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I’m also right about Malfoy, and having everyone constantly telling me I’m imagining things or being petty or tilting at nargles or whatnot is driving me barmy!”

Ginny opens her mouth, but Harry cuts across her.

“And no, before you can accuse me of it, it’s not just because they’re both bloody Slytherin. You heard what they said!”

She wants to snap back at that, at this stupid obsession with Draco, but she can’t ignore what she heard. She doesn’t really know what it means just yet. But at the very least it’s suspicious. And he’s right, that she’s always jumping to the worse conclusions around him.

Harry is standing a few feet away, staring at her like he’s waiting for her to turn and bolt any moment—like he’s torn between making his point and not wanting to drive her away.

Either way, this clearly means a lot to him.

Taking a breath, Ginny sits, carefully settling her robes around her. “Start at the beginning.”

Harry looks wary, like he suspects a trap. “What?”

“With Draco. Start at the beginning. Why do you suspect him? And of what exactly?”

“Ginny, I’m not asking you to—”

“No,” she says, cutting across him. “You’re not. I’m offering.”

He still hesitates.

“If you don’t want to tell me—”

“I do,” he says, looking surprised by this himself.

“Okay.”

He starts calmly enough, like he’s trying to prove how rational he’s being about it all, but as he talks more and more about Borgin and Burkes, what he saw on the train, his suspicions about Katie Bell, the way Draco’s been acting this year—giving up Quidditch, passing up prime chances to be a prick, walking around looking half dead—he ends up furiously pacing back and forth, like he feels the need to spill it all out before she can get a chance to tell him he’s wrong.

He eventually runs out of steam, turning to look at her, clearly braced for her reaction.

“Okay,” is all she says, still trying to take it all in, what it might mean. Not ready to express an opinion.

“He has the mark,” Harry presses, as if this is not the reaction he wants from her.

“The Dark Mark?” Ginny says, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck go up.

He nods, so certain of himself. “He was showing it to them on the train. You know what that means. He’s a Death Eater.”

She touches her own arm, fingers sliding up over her forearm and the tattoo there. “That isn’t always a choice.”

“What?” he says, walking over to her. He looks down at her arm.

She lifts her chin, resisting the urge to tug the fabric back down over her skin. Harry just stares down at it, his brow furrowed. “Everything always looks different from the other side,” he mumbles.

“I suppose so,” she says, feeling horribly exposed and not particularly liking the troubled look in Harry’s eye. She pulls her sleeve back down, getting to her feet. “It’s getting late.”

This shatters Harry’s immobility. “I’ll walk you back,” he automatically offers.

She shakes he head. She doesn’t need his misguided sense of chivalry. “It’s after curfew. And the opposite way for you.”

“I don’t care,” he says. He blows out a breath. “I mean, I want to.”

She hesitates, as always the weak part of her wanting to grab any excuse to spend more time in his company.

“At least let me do this one thing right,” Harry says. “Please.”

She nods.

He surprises her by offering his elbow, like he still doesn’t mind touching her, like that little green tattoo on her arm doesn’t change everything.

She slides her hand into the crook of his elbow.

They’re quiet as they work their way back across the castle. It’s not uncomfortable exactly, but it does feel heavy with everything said. Things still not said. She’s not sure which one of them is doing it, but they are walking slower and slower, the closer they get to the common room.

“This isn’t really how I wanted this evening to go,” Harry eventually says. “Just so you know.”

“And how did you want it to go?”

“Well, with a bit less arguing, I suppose.”

That startles a laugh out of her. “With us? Doesn’t seem likely.”

“Yeah,” he says, a rueful smile tugging at his lips. “I suppose not.”

Against her will, her hand tightens on his arm. “You must be regretting asking me now.”

Harry’s answer is immediate. “Not even a little.”

Despite herself, she finds herself leaning into his arm, wanting so much to believe that. He’s warm and close and there’s that scent that seems to go straight to her head. Despite every complication, this feels seductively simple.

“Me either,” she finds herself admitting.

“Ginny,” he says, pulling her to a stop as he turns to face her.

The way he’s looking at her makes everything slow, makes her feel hyper aware of how close he is standing, how alone they are. She’s still holding his arm, and his hand moves slightly, brushing her waist, almost like a question. She doesn’t move away, lifting her face to look at him.

And then he’s doing it, leaning in as if to kiss her, Ginny’s heart thudding away in her chest, something like anticipation tingling along her skin. Only he stops short, his eyes uncertain as he looks at her, like he’s worried about making another mistake.

So Ginny makes the mistake for him.

She lifts up to meet him, needing to know what this feels like. Wanting to know.

Harry’s hands grip her arms as her lips meet his, pulling her closer.

It’s nothing like her kiss with Kieran, which had been more of an unwelcome attack in her estimation, though had left her wondering if it was possible she didn’t just like kissing all that much. But kissing Harry disproves that almost immediately. His lips are warm and gentle, not really demanding anything, like just being here is more than enough for him.

She moves her free hand up to his neck, fingers sliding around to the curl of hair at the back of his neck, just wanting to touch him, to feel that this is real.

He makes a sound, something low and pleased, and on instinct she parts her lips, Harry immediately pressing closer. Everything only seems to fit together better now as his head tilts to the side.

Her back comes to a stop against the wall, Harry above her and around her, and it’s completely overwhelming in the best possible way, the kiss stretching on and on and on, so much more than she ever could have imagined.

They break apart at the sound of voices approaching down the hall, clearly pissed as they alternate between loud singing and breathless attempt to hush each other. Harry pulls back, distance widening between them as he looks back over his shoulder.

Ginny leans back against the wall and tries to breathe, part of her tempted to just ignore the intrusion, never wanting Harry to stop. But the smarter part of her brain knows what a bad idea that is. This intrusion of reality back into the situation.

Harry looks back at her, seeming a bit befuddled and looking very thoroughly kissed.

She’d done that. Put that look on his face.

“I should go,” she says, as much a reminder to herself.

“Yeah,” he says, looking reluctant, his arm tightening around her again.

Before she can be distracted, she slips out under his arm, reaching for the entrance latch. She really just needs to think about all of this. And something about Harry has always made thinking clearly particularly challenging.

She pauses in the doorway, looking back at him. “Night, Harry.”

“Night,” he says, hands shoved in his pockets as he smiles at her.

Letting the door swing shut behind her, she stops right inside the doorway, her hands going to her lips. There are so many things to think through, to consider more closely, but for now, she just stands there, never wanting the sensation to end.

[annerb-fic]

Lucky

- part one

- part two

- part three

- part four

- part five

- part six

- part seven

- part eight

Part Nine

Harry can confidently say that he has never passed quite so pleasant of an afternoon on the Hogwarts Express in his life.

And it’s not just because he gets to spend a great deal of it kissing Ginny.

Kissing Ginny. He still has a hard time believing it, despite the fact that she is still sitting right next to him, her arm pressed against his. Solid and real.

It’s something he’d been imagining and uncomfortably dreaming about for a while now, but not something he ever had hopes of actually coming true. And the real thing is so much better than his sodding pillow. So, so much better.

They haven’t spent the entire time kissing, of course, just as content to chat aimlessly, and for all Ginny is sometimes a complete mystery to him, they never seem to lack things to talk about. She also doesn’t always agree with him, having a way of asking him questions that make him pause and consider, but not feel like she’s nagging him, and he isn’t really sure why that is yet.

Even when they aren’t though, like right now, he doesn’t feel panic like he has to come up with something. They aren’t kissing or talking, just sitting here, and it’s strangely…great. 

Like it’s maybe too good to be true. 

“What?” Ginny asks.

Harry shakes himself, realizing he’s just staring down at her, and he really needs to quit doing that. Especially with their imminent arrival approaching. And holidays at the Burrow. For two weeks. With her entire family.

That thought helps wipe whatever ridiculous expression he’s doubtlessly sporting at the moment. “Nothing,” he says.

“Hmm,” she says, like she doesn’t buy that for a moment, but she also doesn’t press.

There’s a knock on the compartment door just a moment before it stars sliding open. “I’m coming in,” Hermione announces.

“Yeah, we can see that,” Harry says.

“Oh,” Hermione says, glancing at them. “I just wasn’t sure…”

“Don’t worry,” Ginny says, voice overly bright. “We finished with our illegal potion-making at least, what?” She turns to Harry. “An hour ago?”

Harry nods. “Sold them all too. Hope that first year doesn’t misuse that Draught of Living Death.”

Ginny shakes her head solemnly. “That would be a shame.”

“Or mix it up with the love potion,” he says. 

Ginny stifles a laugh, turning her face towards his shoulder, and Harry suddenly feels like he could take on a thousand dementors.

Hermione just sighs, grumbling under her breath about how unbearable couples are. 

Ginny looks up at him, eyes still sparkling with mirth, and he nearly leans over and kisses her.

“I should probably get back,” she says.

Almost against his will, his hand tightens around hers, and it’s only then he realizes her hand has ended up in his at some point and hasn’t left.

Ginny’s eyes dart towards Hermione, and he supposes she feels they’ve tortured her enough for one day. “I should go say goodbye to Smita and Tobias and get my things.”

“Yeah,” he says, knowing it would be petty to make her stay any longer. “I guess I’ll see you on the platform.”

She nods. “Yes, you will,” she says, and then she’s lifting up and giving him a fleeting kiss, just to the side of his mouth, like this is something they might do now.

She pulls away, looking a little self-conscious, and all Harry can do is look back at her, certain that stupid look is on his face again.

She gets to her feet, her hand squeezing his once before pulling free. She looks over at Hermione. “I hope you have a nice break, Hermione.”

She looks up at Ginny. “Thanks. I’m looking forward to a little peace and quiet.”

Ginny laughs. “I can only imagine.” They regard each other for a moment. “Well, happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas,” Hermione says with a nod.

Ginny turns for the door, smiling at Harry before reaching for the latch.

He doesn’t think he’s imagining that she takes an extra moment before opening the door, her shoulders squaring and chin lifting. He only catches a glimpse of her face as she leaves, just enough to see that any warmth or softness in her expression have completely disappeared.

Harry thinks he hears someone say her name in the distance before the door slides shut, cutting off all sound from the hall.

*     *     *

The platform is loud with crowds of people, steam billowing up over the sound of various pets complaining against too many hours spent in cages. Calls of ‘Mum? Where are you?’ and ‘Dad! Over here!’ and ‘See you next term!’

They find Hermione’s parents first, Harry saying goodbye to her before glancing around for the Weasleys. Ron is already with them when Harry finds them.

Molly sweeps him up into a hug, Arthur shaking his hand.

“Now where is Ginny?” Molly asks, looking around.

“You seen her, Harry?” Ron asks, with an all-too-innocent tone that tells Harry he clearly saw his sister come down to the Gryffindor end of the train. Though why he would say that in front of his parents, of all people…

“Um,” Harry says, panicking. 

“Neither of you saw her?” Molly asks.

“I walked right past you, Ron, at least twice,” Ginny says, appearing as if from nowhere. “Though I can understand why you might not have seen me, distracted as you were.”

With Lavender attached to his face, Harry assumes she means.

Molly frowns, glancing at her son. “Why were you distracted, Ron? What have you been getting up to?”

Ron sputters, ears turning red.

“Oh, nothing,” Ginny says breezily, as if her threat to expose Ron’s relationship with Lavender hadn’t been delivered loud and clear. “He was just really into a chess match. I think he probably took a small fortune off his dormmates.”

“Ron,” Molly says, clucking her tongue. “What have I said about gambling? Did you brothers’ experience at the World Cup teach you nothing?”

“I promise, Mum,” Ron says, looking relieved. “I wasn’t doing it for money.”

Ginny lets out a quiet huff of amusement and then crosses over to Arthur, giving him a giant squeeze. Arthur lifts her up off her feet a little bit, Ginny laughing and smacking his arm.

“Dad, put me down!”

He drops her back to her feet, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, clearly content to have mortified his daughter just the right amount. 

“Shall we get moving?” Arthur asks.

They collect up their things, pressing close as they line up to go out through the barrier. At one point, Ginny brushes up against Harry, grinning at him, his stomach doing a silly little swoop that nearly sends him crashing into the wrong pillar.

Once safely out on the other side of the barrier, Tonks and Kingsley are waiting for them.

“Wotcher, Harry,” she says with a grin, snapping a giant pink wad of bubble gum. 

“Are you expecting trouble?” Harry asks. It’s not that he isn’t happy to see them, it just seems a bit overkill.

Kingsley smiles at him. “Just being cautious.”

“Right,” Harry says, the whole world seeming to rush back in at once.

***

In the cars provided by the Ministry, Ginny sits between Tonks and her mum, Harry, Ron and her dad sitting opposite, with Kingsley in the front with the driver. They’ll likely get home in half as much time this way.

Harry, of course, seems to think it’s a giant imposition on everyone, like it’s a lot of fuss over nothing. Ginny isn’t sure if it is or not. Tonks and Kingsley hardly seem the sort for overreaction. But then, there’s a lot she doesn’t know about the situation.

Ginny amuses herself by talking with Tonks, even as she is more than aware of the strange stony silence between Ron and Harry, the two of them giving each other looks when the other doesn’t see.

It’s enough to make her wonder exactly what kind of conversations they’ve had about Harry dating Ginny.

Dating. That still seems completely unreal to her. What is that even going to look like?

Harry looks up, catching her staring, giving her a fleeting smile before darting a look at her parents, as if wondering if they’ll see.

Ginny sighs.

In no time at all, they’re pulling up to the Burrow, unloading their things and saying goodbye to the aurors. Ginny runs her things up to her room, the space feeling familiar and yet too small somehow, the way it always does when she first comes back.

She takes the time to unpack everything, telling herself she’s just being responsible and not that she’s trying to buy herself time.

Two things have become abundantly clear this afternoon. One, Harry is clearly less than comfortable with the situation. And two, Ron is planning to get as much mileage out of last night as possible. Ginny suspects her warning shot back on the train platform will only go so far. Ron may very well decide short term payoff is worth his long-term misery, stupid sod. Which will only make Harry more miserable.

Only made clearer when it’s time to sit down at the dinner table, Ron and Harry having some sort of an unspoken staring contest. Like Harry might try to sit next to her or something. Like Ron is both egging him on and warning him against it. Merlin.

Ginny solves the problem by sitting down next to her father, leaving Harry and Ron to sit across from her like usual. She tries to glare at Ron, but he is deliberately not looking at her. 

Harry is the one who is constantly looking around at everyone like any one of them might attack him at any moment. Like he’s really beginning to regret the entire thing.

In that moment, Ginny can see two long weeks of awkwardness ahead of them. That will only get worse as more and more of her brothers arrive. They probably should have spent a little less time on the train kissing and a little more time discussing how they were going to approach this.

Molly finally sits down with the rest of them, sighing a bit as she gets off her feet. “So how was the Christmas party?” she asks Ginny. “Were the robes alright?”

It’s hard to believe that was only last night. “They were great, Mum. You outdid yourself.”

Molly tries to demur but look really pleased.

“Harry went to the party too, you know,” Ron helpfully supplies, clearly hoping to make them both squirm as much as possible, the git. One would think he wanted his parents to know about Lavender. Like any of them have the tiniest hope of no news making its way out of Hogwarts to one of the many, many Weasleys.

“Oh,” Molly says, looking at Harry with a fond smile. “Did you enjoy yourself, dear?”

Harry looks like he’s about to swallow his tongue. “Um, yeah,” he says. “It was, uh, nice.”

Ginny can’t help but make a small sound of amusement at his word choice, and he looks up at her in alarm.

“It was fun,” he amends, like he’s scared he’s offended her, or made her think he hadn’t had a good time. “Really, really fun.”

Ron opens his mouth, no doubt ready to add to Harry’s discomfort, maybe mention how late Harry had come back to the dorms, and Ginny’s had just about enough of this.

“We went together,” she says, speaking over Ron. Cutting him off at the pass is definitely the quickest way to deal with this. She will not let him make them all miserable for sodding weeks.

Harry gives her a surprised look, like he wasn’t expecting her to just blurt it out like that.

“You and Harry?” Molly asks, immediately picking up on the blood in the water.

Ginny doesn’t reply, just holds Harry’s gaze, hoping he realizes that this is really the easiest way. Or maybe just giving him a chance to back out. Because part of her is wondering if he’ll deny it, play it off as something they did as friends, if he’d hoped to keep it secret or something. Maybe despite everything, he isn’t really interested in anything more than—

“Yes,” Harry says, voice forceful enough to cut into her thoughts. “We went together.”

Ron’s eyes are wide, as if he can’t believe they just admitted it like that.

Arthur looks up from his dinner as if he hadn’t really been paying attention until now, clearly trying to catch up.

It’s Molly who looks between them, as if trying to ferret out each and every clue. “How lovely,” she eventually says. 

“It was,” Ginny says, still looking at Harry.

He smiles, his shoulders relaxing, like maybe he’d expected to get chucked out of the house or something. “Yeah.”

Ginny smiles back.

“So, Ron,” Molly says, looking across the table at her son. “About this gambling…”

Ron lets out a groan of complaint. “Mum!”

[annerb-fic]

How often do you update the Coffeehouse series? When will you finish Mind the Gap?

I finish as things get finished, as unhelpful as that is as an answer. No schedule. Mind the Gap is suffering from the next (last?) chapter being a pile of crap at the moment. I have not looked at it in months. Some day I hope the energy to rebuild it will come.

[annerb-fic]

Lucky Part One

Lucky Part Two

Lucky Part Three

“Is there going to be dancing?”

Harry looks up from the mangled ends of his tie to look at Neville sitting on his bed nearby. Of all the Gryffindor sixth years, Harry is the only one going to Slughorn’s Christmas party.

“Uh, I dunno,” he says, not having thought about that. Dancing in general is horrific, but if he were dancing with Ginny then maybe…

“From your expression, I assume you still have no clue how to do it,” Dean says.

Seamus laughs. “The Chosen One: can defeat dragons and dark lords, but trips over his own two feet.”

“Ha ha,” Harry mutters.

“No matter,” Seamus says. “Dancing’s just an excuse to hold ‘em as close as you can.” He jumps up on his bed, clutching an imaginary partner to his chest as he swivels his hips suggestively.

Dean roars with laughter, but Harry keeps his eyes on the mirror.

“Watch it,” Ron says, launching a pillow at Seamus.

“Oh, right! He is going with your own lovely sister, isn’t he,” Seamus says, grabbing the pillow and using it as his new imaginary partner, dipping it backwards. “Must be a bit awkward.”

“Not as awkward as having my fist in your face,” Ron mutters.

This only sets the two dolts off again.

Harry lets out a curse, giving up on his tie.

Ron crosses over. “I’ve taught you this charm a million times already,” he says, lifting his wand and easily guiding the ends of his tie into a knot. He’s always been better at these daily little domestic spells than Harry.

“I know,” Harry mutters. He looks at the tie, content that it’s good enough. “Thanks.”

Ron is giving him an assessing look that he doesn’t particularly like. “I think you’re as good as you’re ever gonna get,” he says, looking dubiously up at his hair.

Harry presses a hand down on it. “Gee, thanks.” Glancing at his watch, he walks out of the room.

“Have fun!” they yell after him as he leaves, Ron right behind him.

“Why are you so nervous?” Ron asks as they step out into the spiral stairwell.

Harry shrugs. “Bound to put my foot in it, aren’t I?” Public scrutiny and humiliation are pretty familiar to him at this point. But the thought of the evening going as spectacularly bad as his first date with Cho had gone makes him want to dive back into bed.

Ron put his hand on Harry’s arm, tugging him to a stop. “What is this really?”

“What?” Harry says.

“You made it sound like going with Ginny was a way to get out of asking anyone else, but the way you’re acting… Is this a real date?”

Harry seriously considers lying, but he’s so shit at it he knows there’s not point. “I don’t know,” he bursts out.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Ron asks, a bit incredulous, but not seeming too angry yet. “How can you not know?”

Harry tugs at his collar. “I mean I’m not sure if she thinks it’s a date.”

Ron’s eyes narrow. “But you’d like it to be.”

“If I say yes, am I going to get your fist in my face?”

“Stop it,” Ron says, swatting Harry’s hands away from his collar. “You’re going to ruin it.” He lifts his wand, and Harry can’t help but flinch back, assuming Ron’s finally going to get his hit in.

But after giving Harry a strange look, Ron just recasts the charm, fixing his tie for him. It doesn’t even tighten around his neck or anything. But he also doesn’t immediately put down his wand.

“You fancy her,” Ron says. “Ginny. Our sister.”

Harry almost reaches for his collar again, but stops himself, looking warily down at Ron’s wand still pointed in his direction. “Yes,” he admits, lifting his chin. If Ron wants to hex him for that, then he’ll just have to deal with it.

“Since when?”

Harry shakes his head, still having a hard time separating it from all the excuses he’s made for it. “A while,” he settles for saying.

“Why?” Ron asks.

Harry might take offense at that, but there’s nothing of mocking or disbelief in his tone, more like he really wants to know Harry’s intentions or something.

“Because she’s…she’s…Ginny,” he fumbles, not really sure what else to say. Because she’s really pretty and I think about kissing her all the time and she’s fun to talk with and I feel different when I’m around her. Happy.

“Real eloquent, mate,” Ron says. “You might want to come up with something a bit more specific in case Ginny asks you that. You know, when you’re trying to figure out if this is an actual sodding date or not. Honestly, how does someone even do that? Ask someone out and not ask them out at the same time?”

“We can’t all just grab someone and snog them in the middle of the common room,” Harry defends.

Ron gives him a hard look.

Harry realizes in horror what he’s said. “Not that there’s going to be—I didn’t mean—”

“You’re going to be late,” Ron says, giving him a shove a little perilously close to knocking him down the stairs. “If you’re going on a maybe-date with my sister, at least have the decency to be on time.”

They go down two more turns in silence.

“Are you really okay with this?” Harry asks right before they get to the common room.

Ron snorts. “Don’t think that matters much until Ginny decides if she’s okay with it.”

“Oh god,” Harry says. “Are you sure you can’t maybe punch me hard enough to make me miss the entire thing?”

Ron gives him another shove. “No one stands up my sister, arsehole.”