Chapter Text
Harry mumbled in his sleep. It wasn’t a big thing. Really a small thing, honestly. Ginny hadn’t expected it, was all. She’d gotten so used to reacting instantly the moment someone spoke around her while she slept. Hogwarts hadn’t been safe during the last year before the end of the war.
She’d outright trained her magic to wake her up the instant someone talked.
Which meant that over the last three days since their wedding, Ginny had gotten about three hours of continuous sleep.
Worse that that, Harry woke up instantly if anyone moved around him. He’d been really surprised that Ginny tossed and turned in her sleep. Like, constantly. Mum used to say that she couldn’t put a blanket on Ginny when she was a baby because Ginny would just end up tangled in it and that was a recipe for loud, angry crying.
Ginny kind of felt like crying right now, to be frank. She was just so tired.
The moment she rolled over to try and go back to sleep, Harry jackknifed up in bed, pulling all the blankets off Ginny.
“Okay, that’s it,” Ginny announced with a huff of exhausted tears. “That’s it. That’s all. I’m done. I’m going to sleep in another room, Harry. I just. I’m so tired. I’m so tired.”
He stared at her, blinking. His wand was in his hand. Not sparking, but definitely at the ready.
“G-Ginny,” Harry said. “Oh, bloody hell. I hate this.”
Harry collapsed back into his pillow, wand still in his hand. In the light of the full moon streaming through Grimmauld Place’s master suite windows, she could see the bags under Harry’s eyes. Matched the ones under her eyes, frankly.
“Harry,” Ginny said, poking him in the shoulder. “We need to sleep separately. I love you. You’re wonderful. You’re brilliant. You talk in your bloody sleep. I toss and turn. We’re going to murder each other in another day or two. We need to sleep separately.”
“I agree,” Harry said, staring up at her blearily. “But the contract…”
“Fuck the contract,” Ginny complained. “We can’t sleep in the same bed because we can’t sleep if we’re in bed together.”
That was… sort of circular, but Harry nodded quite seriously, so whatever. The big grandfather clock at the base of the stairs bonged once. One a.m. She’d been lying there trying to sleep for hours. And so had Harry.
“Okay, yeah, that’s… yeah,” Harry said. “I… this. Right. Um. How do we do it?”
“You’re Lord Potter,” Ginny said. “You, I don’t know, decree that we shall sleep separately. And, I guess tell me which bedroom will be mine?”
Harry nodded. “Then. Um. Right. You. Bedroom opposite mine. Other end of the hallway. It’s all cleaned up. That’s the, the, the Lady’s suite? I think? We’ll call it the Lady’s suite. Yours now.”
Ginny laughed, her whole body shaking with exhaustion. “Magic, Harry. You have to put magic into it.”
“Lady Potter’s suite,” Harry said, eyes crossed and face so very desperate.
Magic surged around them and abruptly Ginny not only could go sleep somewhere else, she sort of had to get the hell out of Harry’s bed and down the hallway to the other big suite.
“Thank you,” Ginny groaned as she slipped out bed and grabbed her slippers and robe from the chair next to the bed. “We’ll figure clothes out tomorrow. After, like, lunch.”
“Good plan,” Harry mumbled as he turned his face into his pillow again. “Great plan. Awesome plan. Best plan. Night.”
Ginny laughed under her breath as she lit a lumos and then stumbled down the third floor hallway to the Lady Potter suite, now with a little tag on the door declaring it to be hers. The door opened for her. There was a low fire in the fireplace, snapping companionably in the sitting room. Office off to the right. Bedroom, beautiful bedroom with no mumbling Harry off to the left.
The bedroom, when she stumbled into it, already had the blankets turned down and the curtains drawn most of the way around.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Ginny moaned as she tossed her robe at the foot of the bed, kicked off her slippers and then climbed in.
Blessed silence. Finally.
Ginny settled in with the deeply grateful thought that Mum would never need to know. She would pitch a fit if she found out that they’d decided to sleep separately. Not a proper way to this and the scandal that.
“Fuck mum,” Ginny mumbled as she pulled the blankets up over her head and conked the fuck out.
#
Morning, such as it was, came about one in the afternoon. Ginny sighed and stretched, luxuriating in the feeling of not having an aching head, not having an aching body, not feeling like she wanted to cry because she was so very exhausted.
Really, she needed to sit down with Harry and go over that stupid marriage contract to see what else they needed to circumvent or overrule. Mum put in so many deeply ridiculous things. The Potter estate had a bunch of requirements, too, which had kept Mum’s wildest, most abusive ideas from happening, but Mum had gone full petty every time she was thwarted in getting Ginny “her due”.
Her due.
As if Ginny wanted ninety-eight percent of what Mum insisted on.
That was all Mum and now that Ginny could actually think again, she was going to sit down. She was going to pull that stupid contract apart. And she was going to work with Harry to reclaim both of their lives, just see if she didn’t.
She took a long, lovely hot shower. Got dressed in her favorite jeans and oversized jumper that she’d nicked from Harry, and then blinked because all of her clothes, jewelry, books, and general stuff were already in her suite.
“Huh,” Ginny said, surprised. “Oh, well. I guess the family magic took care of it. Or Kreacher. Probably Kreacher, actually.”
Two o’clock in the afternoon was a great time for breakfast. Since Kreacher and Harry had colluded to ensure that no one would ever eat down in the kitchen again, Harry was in the parlor, nursing a cup of tea that was about one-third tea and two-thirds sugar mixed with just enough milk to make it fluid instead of syrupy sludge.
He smiled brightly when Ginny meandered in. Hair like a crow’s nest, but Harry looked so very happy that Ginny just ran her fingers through his bangs before settling on the opposite side of the table.
“You look better,” Harry said as he waved his wand to pour out a cup of nice Irish Breakfast tea for her.
“I feel better,” Ginny said. “You look like you’re going to live.”
He laughed. “Not wrong. Seriously, that was… not good. Thanks for suggesting it.”
“No problem,” Ginny said as she added one sugar and no milk at all to her tea. “We can never tell Mum or my siblings, though.”
They shared a shudder of horror at the sheer thought. This whole marriage had been mostly Mum’s idea, frankly. Yes, Ginny loved Harry and he loved her, but they’d privately agreed that they would wait a couple of years before getting married. After everything they went through, getting their heads on straight was just sensible, you know?
Yeah, no.
Mum had pitched an utter fit at the idea of them not getting engaged practically over Voldemort’s body. They’d held out for a grand total of three months before they gave into Mum’s constant questions, demands and offers to write them up a lovely marriage contract.
Hah! Like Mum could do that.
The Potter estate had very firm rules about what kinds of marriage contracts their heirs could enter into. Mum had gotten basically not one thing she wanted on that front. So many battles. So many failures. So many instances of Mum putting in vindictive little things like Harry not being able to exile Ginny from his bed without full agreement between them.
Mum probably thought that she got to vote. No way in Hell. Amal Swashlin, the Potter seneschal who’d kept the entire Potter estate running while Harry was incommunicado and then leading a rebellion against Voldemort, had made it perfectly clear that only Harry and Ginny got to decide how any of the stupid little clauses Mum “snuck” in were handled.
Ginny had suggested backing out of the entire contract idea about a thousand times. Hadn’t won. Neither of them had been willing to deal with Mum’s howlers day in and day out, so they’d given in.
“What’s wrong with jumping a broom, Mum?” Ginny had finally demanded. “It worked just fine for you and Dad. Why do I have to have a contract? You didn’t demand that for Bill and Fleur.”
“You wouldn’t be Lady Potter,” Mum had shouted at her. “You deserve that, Ginny. You’re my perfect girl, my beautiful daughter. You’re strong and fierce and so smart. You deserve to be Lady Potter properly instead of just Mrs. Potter.”
Ginny had thrown her hands up and gone to ask Daddy. All Daddy had said was that it would probably be all right. Hermione had bitten her lip and suggested that maybe Ginny could travel for a while.
Like Ginny had the money to travel. Mum’s wild marriage plans had killed Ginny’s chances to try out for professional quidditch, at least this year.
Next year, though. Harry had already promised.
Harry sighed on the other side of the table. “Yeah, no, we’re definitely not telling them. Any of them. It’s Saturday. What did we have planned?”
“I have no clue,” Ginny admitted, sipping her tea happily. “Seriously, I wrote it all down because I could not remember anything for the life of me. Too tired to think. Let me get some toast and I’ll go get my day planner.”
No one who roomed in the same dorm with Hermione Granger survived without setting up their own day planner. Pure self defense there, though Ginny had come to rely on hers to keep track of everything going on. It was part diary, part to do lists, part calender and all a mess due to all the notes and scraps of paper she’d shoved into the thing.
Ginny nibbled on her toast as she slowly strolled down the stairs back to the parlor where a full English breakfast waited for her.
Harry had his journal out. It was one of the proper magical ones that recorded everything that happened automatically. While Ginny searched through her scraps and notes and bits of paper, Harry scanned his journal. Both of them ate at the same time. Silently.
Another thing that Mum would’ve had fits about, as hypocritical as that was. Newlyweds should, apparently, spend all their time staring soulfully into each other’s eyes while feeding each other bites of food. Who had time for that?
“Okay, we have a meeting with your account manager, Silverclaw, at three-thirty,” Ginny said once she found the right note. “No idea what on. He just said that it’s vital and overdue.”
“Yeah, that’s about all I’ve got,” Harry agreed. He shook his head. “Well, that plus your mum expects that we’ll bring her along.”
“New rule!” Ginny immediately declared before Harry could give up, stand up, and call Mum to come join them. “No one who is not born into the Potter-Black family, married into the Potter-Black family, or a vassal of the Potter-Black family is allowed to attend meetings at Gringotts, unless expressly permitted by Lord Potter-Black, in writing, at least, oh, how about a week in advance?”
Harry blinked at her. Then he started snickering as he waggled a finger her way.
“Good rule,” Harry said. “I approve of this rule. I’m writing this rule into the Journal. This rule is now an official House Potter-Black rule. Oh, it can only be amended, revoked or otherwise overruled by a majority vote of House Potter-Black members.”
“Nice,” Ginny crooned before cackling and clapping her hands. “We’re 50-50 right now so it has to be unanimous or there’s no change.”
“Exactly,” Harry agreed. He glanced at the clock. “Better get changed. We’ll be public so we have to look the part, I guess.”
Ginny groaned but nodded.
Mum had gone dangerously intent just before the wedding when Ginny attempted to slip out into the back yard at the Burrow wearing worn out jeans and one of the old jumpers Mum had knit her. Since Harry had been there, they’d both frozen, sure that it was going to be yet another lecture on purity before marriage and not shaming their family lines, like Harry and Ginny hadn’t long since lost their virginity together.
“A lady does not go out in public wearing rags,” Mum had hissed at Ginny. Her glare at Harry’s battered trainers was nearly as furious, like Harry had ever had good shoes.
“I’m not a lady yet,” Ginny had tried to protest.
She’d changed into a nice sundress with uncomfortable shoes just to escape the lecture. Harry’d had to let Mum transfigure his shoes, jeans and old T-shirt into something more appropriate for going to the Wizengamot.
Neither of them were willing to risk being photographed in public in comfortable clothes anymore. Just not worth it.
They met back up at the floo, Ginny in nice slacks, a good blouse and a summer robe overtop. Harry had good trousers, a waistcoat, white shirt and a summer robe. They both let Kreacher give them a once-over. And then they went through the floo hand in hand, just as Mum had insisted they needed to do.