Who Is Ginny Weasley Dating? by sapphire200182



Summary: ***Winner of Best Overall and the People's Choice award in The One Where Everyone Found Out challenge (2021-1)***The fact that someone new was going out with Ginny Weasley seemed to interest a great number of people, including the rest of the Weasley family. But this time, it's a little different...
Rating: PG starstarstarstarstar
Categories: The One Where Everyone Finds Out (2021-1)
Characters: None
Genres: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: The Moments In Between
Published: 2021.04.23
Updated: 2021.06.05


Who Is Ginny Weasley Dating? by sapphire200182
Chapter 1: The Brothers
Author's Notes:

Chapter One: The Brothers


“You’d think people had better things to gossip about,” said Ginny, as she sat on the common-room floor, leaning against Harry’s legs and reading the Daily Prophet. “Three Dementor attacks in a week, and all Romilda Vane does is ask me if it’s true you’ve got a Hippogriff tattooed across your chest.”

Ron and Hermione both roared with laughter. Harry ignored them.

- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

* * *


It was half past nine at night in the Ministry of Magic, London, and the building was mostly deserted. Only a dozen or so souls were left in the building, and that only because there was a War on, didn’t you know? Half of these were Aurors who now stood ready round the clock to defend the Ministry, and respond to Death Eater attacks at any time (one year ago, Cornelius Fudge had curbed this practice as unnecessary waste of Auror effort in a time of unparalleled peace, until the Ministry had been penetrated one night by a group of Death Eaters, schoolchildren, some public-spirited citizens, You-Know-Who, and then-fugitive Albus Dumbledore). The other half were the most earnest of the Minister of Magic’s administrative staff, doing their part unto the wee hours to battle the sudden surge in bureaucratic work necessary to ensure the War was properly logged, filed, collated, stamped, dotted and crossed.

One of these was the Junior Assistant to the Minister for Magic.

Percy Weasley sat in his office chair, his quill scratching out a detailed report on the forecast impact of the Ministry of Magic’s wartime measures on the domestic economy of Wizarding Britain. At his elbow, his evening mug of chamomile tea sat, half-drunk and now stone-cold. He scowled at the report as if it had somehow personally offended him, as he did at most things and people these days. Percy finished a line, picked up the cup, drank, and grimaced. He threw aside his quill, leaned back in his chair wincing at the aches in his back, and looked at the clock.

Half past nine. At this time, most Ministry employees were home, full of dinner, feet up in front of the fireplace, spending time with their families. Percy had a rented apartment in Purs Lane, Highbury; had bolted a sandwich two hours ago, and had no family... that he cared to admit to.

Half past nine. The brothers would be well into business matters about now, he thought. Then Percy pushed the thought aside. He had work to do. The new Minister for Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour, did not have as much appreciation for Percy’s administrative abilities that Fudge had. Much work was needed for Percy to impress the new Minister and get his career back on track. Afterwards; there would be time for apologies afterwards, when they saw what he had achieved. He bent back to his report.

But his thoughts strayed anyway.

* * *


“Damn it, Charlie, will you sit up and pay attention?”

From the depths of a pint of sudsy dark brown Palmer’s, Charlie mumbled something and gave Bill a finger.

“I’m being serious, Charlie!”

Charlie finished his fifth pint of the night, belched, grinned happily at Bill, and said “Alright, alright, keep your knickers on. What were we on about again?”

Behind his own pint-glass George sniggered, his chair balanced on two legs and his dragonskin boots planted on the table amidst the remnants of battered cod, cottage pie, and Yorkshire puds. Fred snapped chips out of the air like an inebriated performing seal, having enchanted them to get up off the plate, solemnly dip themselves in brown sauce, and leap high into the air, aiming for his mouth. The upright chips had formed a grim kind of queue in front of the ramekin of sauce, like resigned aristocrats waiting for the guillotine.

There were times when Bill thought he was the only Weasley left with a Sickle-worth of sense in the whole damn family. Seriously. First of all, to address the Erumpent in the room, there was that completely pig-headed Perce, who couldn’t get over his own massive pride to take back all that he had said. Consequently Dad, who felt he had failed the family in handling the Percy situation, was killing himself to make up for it by doing all he could to protect them from the war, never mind enough sleep and regular meals. Mum was fretting over every one of the family, one after the other, on rotation on the hour every hour. And the remaining brothers... well, they each had their own idiosyncracies. Not to except the Baby Sister, no, not at all...!

It was Bill who had, of his own accord, initiated the tradition of the Weasley Brothers’ Meetings. These took place whenever Charlie was in London, which wasn’t often as it was a shattering 12-hour broom flight from Romania, and these days he only travelled to London on Order business... and there was always the chance of being nobbled by the Death Eaters. But still, they did manage to get together every couple of months to eat, drink, swap news with a frankness less suited to the ears of the Parents, and decide on whether there was any need for an intervention upon any family member by the Adult Weasley Brothers, with all the force of a united front.

This they did in a private room of a Muggle pub in the village of Ottery St Catchpole. It had the advantage of being fairly anonymous in wizarding terms, while yet familiar, private and secure enough once a Gringotts Curse-Breaker had put up all the wards that were expedient, and gave the meeting all the outside appearances of a big old piss-up... which frankly it was, now that Percy was no longer an attendee, and Fred and George had joined the fray.

“Look, Bill, Percy’s going to keep on being a pillock, there’s sod-all you can do about that,” said Fred. “And if it’s only work that’s going to take Dad’s mind off the git, let him have at it.”

“We were done with all that half an hour ago,” said Bill evenly. “The subject now, for the last time, is Ron’s latest letter to me.” Besides the official Letter Home to the Family, which was always addressed to Mum and contained news that did the rounds of the family by and by, Ron also kept up a separate correspondence with Bill, which typically contained news and remarks of the kind best not seen by maternal eyes.

“Oh. Right,” said Fred disinterestedly. He twiddled his wand; the next unfortunate chip did a twist and somersault before plunging to its fate. “That’s news from the front, that is. Well, how’s old hoggy warty Hogwarts then? Still standing? No more Educational Decrees?”

“That’s the oddity; Ron’s being unusually uptight. It seems Ginny’s got herself a new boyfriend, but Ronnie won’t tell me who he is.”

There could not have been greater reaction if You-Know-Who had burst into the room wearing a bikini and singing A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love. Charlie choked on his sixth pint; Fred mischarmed a chip and it fired like a bullet into the ceiling, smashing into potato paste; George overbalanced and tumbled backwards out of his chair, swearing.

“What, already?” exclaimed Fred incredulously. “Blimey, she runs through them like socks don’t she?”

“Oh, bravo, Ginny,” muttered George, “On top of everything, give Mum kittens about raising a ‘scarlet woman’.”

“What d’you mean, he won’t tell?” asked Charlie. “Did you write back and ask him specifically?”

“Course I did,” said Bill. “He said to ask Gin, if we dared.”

The Weasley brothers thought about this for a moment, unconsciously crossing their legs.

“Cheeky little tosser,” Charlie observed. “Remind me to poke him in the snoot the next time I see him.”

“You want us to persuade him for you?” asked Fred with a gleam in his eye. “I can think of a couple items we can send him by owl that ought to remind him to obey his elders.”

“Yeah, like about twenty Galleons,” said George. “That should settle him easily.”

“You dimwits are missing the forest for the Bowtruckles,” snapped Bill. “The question is, who is Ginny dating this time that’s so different? Ron had no trouble selling Corner and Thomas down the river the last time. What’s different this time?”

The Weasley brothers considered this new angle.

“Maybe he’s a seventh-year,” said Charlie, who to Bill’s satisfaction now appeared to be taking things seriously but was still at least one sheet to the wind. “How old is she again? Twelve, thirteen? I forget, I just think of all you lot as a bunch of titchy tots,” he grinned, nodding at the twins.

George chucked a spoon at him.

“She’s already taking her O.W.L.s, Charlie,” said Bill. “I haven’t a clue who he could be. Whoever it was, Ron didn’t seem very pleased. Maybe he’s someone really gormless, like this McLaggen bloke Ron keeps harping about.”

“Nah, she likes them brainy, not brawny. Even that Corner bloke wasn’t exactly dull, just a pillock.”

“Maybe he’s a Hufflepuff,” said George; “Maybe he’s a Slytherin,” said Fred, simultaneously. They stared at each other in horror.

“Maybe it’s that Finch-Fletchley bloke, the one who got Petrified,” said George. He wrung his hands dramatically, “They bonded over the shared trauma of their first years! She was possessed by You-Know-Who, he was nearly offed by You-Know-Who’s great big bloody snake; who would’ve thought love could spring from such...”

“Not funny, George,” said Charlie. “Anyway, I can’t see this Fletchley chap going after the girl who sort of got him into that state, even if it wasn’t her fault at all.”

“He’s a Slytherin, that’s why Ginny’s put the screws on Ron,” said Fred confidently. He thought for a moment, then blanched. “It’s Malfoy!” he whispered, horrified by his own imagination.

“Doesn’t have to be Malfoy, could be any Slytherin,” said George. “How about that lah-di-dah bloke with the poncey name, what’s it... Zabini...?”

“Blaise...”

“Yes, that’s the one, it could be him!

“Oh, brother!” Fred and George put their arms around each other and shuddered.

“Knock it off, you silly asses,” said Bill sharply. “The point is, if Ron won’t cough up the gen, we’ll have to find out from someone else. Is there anyone you can owl in Hogwarts who’ll spill?”

Charlie shrugged. “Long out of school, brother.”

“Same here. It’s really down to you two,” Bill nodded at the twins. “What about your friends? Maybe your Gryffindor Quidditch team-mates?”

“Most of our mates left school last year,” said Fred. “The only one of the old team still in is Katie Bell, and she's got in some kind of accident, had to check into St Mungo’s.”

“Besides, no Gryffindor would risk crossing Ginny to snitch for us,” said George. “Her Bat-Bogey Hex is practically House legend, and everyone knows she hexes first and asks questions later.”

“Well, if that’s so, then there’s only one thing for it, is there?” said Bill. “We have to take a direct hand in this. Someone, or someones, will have to look into this seriously, and get direct eyes on the situation. Maybe even go to Hogwarts, see if we can collar Ron and shake him down, or something like that.”

“Well count me out, I’m going back to Romania,” said Charlie.

“I’d think of something myself, but Gringotts is running me ragged,” grumped Bill.

The two older Weasleys turned and looked expectantly at the twins.

“Well, it’s true that as successful independent small-business owners, and unlike contractual employees, we have a freer hand with our schedules,” Fred buffed his nails theatrically. “But I’ll have to discuss this with my business partner.”

“Be with you in half a sec,” said George.

Bill rolled his eyes. The twins conferred amongst themselves rapidly in low whispers, then nodded to the other two Weasleys.

“I can give George some time off,” said Fred regally.

“Fred’s due a replacement holiday,” said George with officious authority. “We’ll do it, both of us.”

“Whatever,” said Bill. “Now, I won’t have to tell you two to be discreet, alright? No pranks, no jokes, don’t even let yourselves be seen. The last thing we want is for our baby sister to know we’re looking out for her on, er, this matter, and she’s as sharp as anything, she’ll see through any excuses. I can’t imagine how you’ll swing it, but FIND OUT.”

“Leave that to us,” said George, grinning. “We know just the right time and place.”

Bill groaned, snatched Charlie’s seventh pint out of his hands, and drained it himself.

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