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The First Year, An Almost Happily Ever After Story | ||||||
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Category: Post-DH/AB Characters:Harry/Ginny Genres: Action/Adventure Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 103 Summary: Fairy tales end “And They Lived Happily Ever After,” but wars end with Post Traumatic Stress Disorders. Someone is taking hostages and wants to kill Harry and everyone close to him. Follow our favorite characters as they rebuild their lives the first year after the war, Harry as he becomes an Auror and finds out that life as a hero has its own challenges, Ginny as she finds out that having all your dreams come true does not solve all your problems, and the rest of the Weasley clan as they start to rebuild their lives. Hitcount: Story Total: 96954; Chapter Total: 3108 Awards: View Trophy Room |
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Saturday August 23rd was the wedding of George Weasley and Angelina Johnson. It was going to be a small and simple wedding, with George not getting to the New Burrow until about 1:00 in the afternoon. The business had suffered when it was closed during the war. Since it was so close to the time students left for Hogwarts, George did not dare close the store. Verity, Lee Jordan, and a couple of other trusted employees were going to keep the store open during the wedding and George and Angelina were going to open the store on Sunday as usual. From the Weasley family, only the people who normally attended the Sunday breakfasts were there. The Appleleaf family made themselves scarce by going to their house, which was almost finished. Angelina’s family was small. She was the youngest. Neither her older brother nor sister was married, although her brother brought a date and they hoped he that was getting serious since she seemed like a very nice witch. The Johnson parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were there. Her great-grandfather was fairly light skinned and had moved to Britain from the U.S. almost a century ago. He had married an African from one of the British colonies, as had his son and grandson, so all of the current generation of Johnson children were about as black as they could be. All of the wives’ families were still in Africa, and the Johnson family seemed to be involved in trade with many of them. The family was as pureblood as it was possible to be in the Wizarding community, and the son was upset because his girlfriend’s family had a hard time accepting him. They were mostly (3/4) pureblood. He could prove that even on the American side, he was well over 90% pureblood. Angelina’s brother complained to Harry, “If all they cared about was Muggle blood on the African side of the family, we can’t find a Muggle ancestor, and the magical community in Africa has records going back 4,000 years. I think it’s because we’re black and not white, although no one has the courage to say anything.” Uncle Vernon was an out and out racist. One of the things Harry liked best about the Magical community was the apparent absence of racial prejudice. If Ginny was clueless about muggle technology, she was also clueless about racial prejudice, and Harry had to explain to her why someone could be upset about Angelina’s brother because of skin color. Harry looked in amazement at the Weasley family. Fleur was about as light skinned as could be, with long straight hair that was a beautiful light blond, Angelina was as black as possible, with a very short cropped head of the blackest, curliest hair. She was taller than George, almost as tall as Ron who at 6’ was the tallest in the family. Fleur was as delicate and small boned as they come, although no where near as short as Ginny. Angelina looked formidable, big boned, with big hips but then more straight up and down (although she was getting bustier since getting pregnant). It was not just Ginny. None of the Weasley family had ever encountered prejudice because of skin color, just prejudice because of a muggle background. The wedding was short and simple, the only concession in dress to it being a wedding was the tiara perched on Angelina’s head. Aunt Muriel had, of course, insisted that she be allowed to come over to put the tiara on Angelina and perform the spell that held it on before the wedding. Mercifully, she left shortly afterwards. The families traded names and addresses and promised to keep in touch. All of the Johnsons thanked Harry for what he had done. But then they thanked Ron, Hermione and Ginny as well, so that Harry did not feel singled out, which was the nicest thing they could have done for him. Before they left, Angelina’s father sought out Harry and said, “We are import and export agents, dealing mostly in magical commodities. George’s products are in demand around the world. Thank you for being his silent partner!” By 5:00 PM, George and Angelina had left to go back to the store and work until the shop closed. Harry thought that they had better meet with Griffin and Grunt on Sunday afternoon, and they agreed to have lunch at Grimmauld place at noon. Harry talked a little about what he wanted to do. “I’d like the place wired for electricity and the internet,” Harry said. “I know you can put in magical and gas lighting, but I would like good electric lighting. I know I want a television.” “We looked at some of the other houses on the block,” Ginny said. “Some of them have bigger windows, and one even seems to have a skylight. I want a bright and airy house!” After lunch, Grover Grunt and Grindywald Griffin went over the house almost inch by inch. Griffin did most of the writing. He had a set of house plans and was making notations on them. Grunt used mostly his wand, but he had some muggle tools and some magical ones as well. When they were done, Griffin suggested meeting in the drawing room. “Structurally, the house is sound, but it’s all settled. That’s a problem. Plus, if we are going to put in electricity and communication wiring we have to get behind the walls, and when walls are this old, sometimes when you open one up, there is no telling what kind of a mess you are going to find behind it. We know, from our investigation, that there is some mold. That’s a muggle problem not a magical one and removing it is going to require removing the places that are moldy. Plus, this place is full of curses! You’re not going to be happy here unless we remove all the curses.” “How much time are we talking about?” asked Harry. “Two full weeks to have the curse breakers go over the house, another couple of weeks to demolish the inside of the house and still another week to finish the work of the curse breakers,” Griffin said. “We can get rid of that accursed painting too, not by magic but by physically removing the wall in little pieces.” They pointed out where they could enlarge many windows and put in a magical skylight to bring light into the kitchen. Ginny agreed at once to the suggested changes. “Once we have the major structural work done, then we can begin to install wiring for the Internet and electricity, gas lines for gas lights and other components. You need insulation, and then in front of the wiring, you need a special magical barrier sheet to keep a group of magicians, even a couple who are leaking a lot of magical energy, from messing up the electricity. When that’s done, we need to put up the walls and finish the interior. All of this has to be done in the middle of the city on a building that, as far as muggles are concerned, does not exist. It’s not easy,” Griffin concluded. Grover Grunt jumped in with, “It’s a lot of work, but this property is magical. There have been magical people in this area for a very long time, and even in walking around the block, I can feel the magic. How much time are you two going to have to work on the interior once we get the house roughed in?” “I’m just going to be in Auror training,” Harry said. “Plus working on the estate issues, plus you’re on the Wizengamot, Harry,” Ginny popped in with. “I’m just going to be trying to finish my last year at Hogwarts.” Griffin and Grunt could not promise that the house would be ready for Christmas, especially if Ginny was busy at school and Harry was as busy as it was looking like he was going to be. Late Sunday afternoon, Bill and Harry had to leave for the mid-east. Ginny went back to the New Burrow, and she and Fleur stayed late talking with Molly. Ginny did get a message for a phone call from Harry. She walked out of the wards at the New Burrow, and then with Fleur and Molly and Arthur watching, placed the call. After she talked to Harry, she let Fleur talk to Bill. And then first Molly and then Arthur talked to both Bill and Harry. Fleur said, “Beel ez talking about getting mobiles for us. Ezpenseve. Beel tell me ‘arry Potter Estate weel pay. Beel says ‘ee needs for estate, and I work for estate.” “How much do these cost?” asked Molly. “I heard them say something about twenty five Galleons at the store,” Ginny volunteered. Arthur said, “The closest thing the magical world has is mirrors, but they have to be set up to work with each other. Harry and Sirius had a pair. You can have mirror sets that are more than two mirrors, but just because you have one does not mean that you can talk to any mirror. And they are expensive, and they break easily. I saw some small ones, a pair for fewer than five hundred Galleons each, but that was a special price.” “The mobiles are even more expensive, and you have to pay something each month. Dan Williamson said that mugglel mobiles are getting less and less expensive, but there are so few mobiles in our world that it will take a while to get the cost down. Dan also said that, despite the cost, hundreds of them are being sold every month in North America and China, and they are spreading in the rest of the world. “The phones that Harry and Ginny bought cost one thousand Galleons each, plus twenty five Galleons each month.” Everybody in the room looked shocked when Arthur mentioned the cost of the phones. When the girls went to bed, Molly figured that the first year of having two phones would be 2,600 Galleons, over a third of Arthur’s salary of 7,500 Galleons a year. She still could not really understand how much money Harry had at his disposal. There was no way Molly wanted to spend that much money. Ginny sent Hermione, Hannah and Luna owls to see when they could go shopping for school supplies. It was finally agreed that they would meet on Monday the 24th. Mrs. Hannah Abbott Longbottom had decided to go back to school and see if she could survive at school after the baby was born. Always before, Ginny went to get school supplies with her parents, and they bought the supplies. Now she had her own money, well it came from Harry, but one thing she did know was that there was almost nothing that she wanted that she could not buy. In every way that it counted, once one was a married woman, she was an adult. Harry went off to work this morning and he was still the same Mr. Harry Potter that he had been last week, and the week before, all his life. She was Mrs. Ginny Potter not Miss Ginny Weasley. She could have kept her last name the same, but it didn’t make sense. Her mum was a Prewett, but mum, dad, and children should all have the same last name. And she wanted children, not right now, but someday. Besides, she had dreamed of marrying Harry, and not becoming Mrs. Potter didn’t make sense. Nursing Teddy convinced her that she was not ready to be a full time mother, but she really missed Teddy and missed having a child on her breast. How could you feel two opposite things at the same time? What would it be like being Mrs. Potter at Hogwarts? What was it going to be like living a very different life than Harry, she a student, she maybe a Quidditch player, Harry an Auror, sleeping together but usually living different lives. Her dad went to work, her mum stayed home. They were very different people, but it was hard to imagine them not together. Were she and Harry going to get there? Well, it was time to take the Floo to WWW to meet Hermione and Hannah. Shopping was not a lot different, except that Ginny never had to ask her mother if she could buy something, which was quite nice, in and of itself. Having lunch with Hannah, Hermione and Luna was also not a lot different. Three of them were intimate with their partners, so even though Hermione was not married, they all had that in common. Luna was intently interested in anything to do with couples and marriage, although occasionally Ginny thought that despite having a lot of book knowledge sometimes Luna completely missed the point. Most of the lunch, which lasted a couple of hours, was spent in talking about the next year at Hogwarts. Since Hermione had been made Head Girl, she was going to be in a single room. But at the same time, there would be many more nights when she had to be at Hogwarts than ones that she could spend at the flat above the store. Ron could, however, take the Floo to her room. Hermione had gotten permission for her room to be connected to the apartment above the Hogsmeade Store. She doubted that this would have been allowed except for the fact that they’d helped Harry so much in his defeat of Tom Riddle. Toward the end of the lunch, Ginny noticed a vial of birth control potions that Hermione had taken out of her purse. So she asked Hermione, “When did you start sleeping with my brother?” Hermione answered, “Just a week ago Sunday night. Maybe that’s why Ron was so interested in the first time. We were getting closer to it.” “The big hypocrite!” Ginny interjected, thinking ‘they are sleeping together.’ The birth control potion was not proof, just a good guess. “Well, Ron does have something of a double standard,” Hermione replied, “especially where his sister is concerned.” Ginny, Hannah and Luna waited for Hermione to continue. “Ron must like me a lot. He keeps telling me how beautiful I am and how lucky he is. He is very endearing when he does not have his foot in his mouth. And he is cute when he stumbles over his words and cannot get out what he wants to say.” Ginny and Hannah nodded in agreement about Ron’s tendency to stumble over what he wanted to say. Hermione continued, “We moved into the flat over the Hogsmeade store, each in a separate bedroom, but we spent enough time in one of the beds snogging.” Hermione got a huge grin on her face. From the way she paused and the faces she made, Ginny guessed that they had been doing a little more than some innocent snogging. Hermione gathered her thoughts and continued, “At the end of July, when I got back from Australia, I got some contraceptive potion, and after my period I started taking it. By the 15th, I thought that it was silly that I was taking the potion and had really made up my mind to take our relationship the next step but had not done anything about it. Ron feels bad that he does not have enough money for an engagement ring and does not want a formal engagement until I am wearing his ring. But he wants to marry me, and I want to marry him. Well, Sunday, a week ago, was the last straw. I didn’t think that, if given a chance, Ron would say ‘lets just stay virgins for a few more years, or months, or days.’ So I told him that I missed sleeping in the same room with him, like we did when we were at Hogwarts those last two weeks. When he said that he missed that too, getting a little red in the face and embarrassed in the process, I suggested that I could move my stuff into his bedroom, if it was all right with him. He stammered and, … I love it when Ron gets all flustered. He surely was flustered, but he said that whatever I wanted to do was fine with him. I went into the bedroom, turned the two beds into a nice large bed and moved my stuff into the room. Ron was working in the store, and I made a quick dinner and we ate in the store where we could watch for customers. A little before closing time, I told Ron that I would be up in the bedroom reading. I put on the sexiest nightgown I had, but it was still a conservative cotton one, so I transfigured it into a really sheer silk nightgown.” Hermione paused. “It’s a lot easier transforming cotton into silk than into nylon. Silk is a natural fiber, and nylon is an artificial material, like a plastic. Magic works with plastics but it’s different. I was going to make the nightgown sheer nylon, but it wasn’t so easy. Well, I had other things on my mind.” Hermione sort of grinned at the girls, and Ginny and Hannah shook their heads, smiling at each other knowingly. Only Hermione, or maybe Luna, would go into an explanation of magic while describing her first night of passion. “As I was saying, I transfigured the nightgown into a really transparent one. What was covered you could still see, and then after I had put the knickers on, I decided that I really did not need them on either, so I took them off. I just sort of needed the night gown top on to keep me a little warm. You should have seen Ron’s face when he walked into the bedroom!” “I can imagine,” said Ginny, giggling. “What did he say?” “He was stammering pretty badly,” said Hermione, a big smile on her face. “He said something like, ‘Are you? Are we? Oh my!’ So I told him we did not have to do anything, but if he wanted to go further, I was ready. ‘I’ve taken a contraceptive potion, Ron.’ Then I said, ‘Take a shower and come to bed with me.’ He asked, ‘What do I wear?’ and I said, ‘I don’t see why you need to wear anything. I’d rather have you keep me warm than this nightgown.’ So he took the fastest shower in history, and when he came back into the bedroom with nothing on, I could tell that he had been thinking about what was coming next. Men are so transparent, and he was ready. So I took off my nightgown and told him to kiss me and take his time, and we would figure this out. And we did.” Luna asked in astonishment, “How did you know Ron was all ready? How can you tell?” Hermione, Ginny and Hannah all looked at each other, started to giggle and got redder and redder. Finally Hermione whispered something to Luna. Luna pondered what Hermione said, sort of looked around at some of the males in the room, and finally responded, “It does? Oh, that’s interesting. It will probably be a useful thing to know.” Quickly changing the subject, Ginny asked Hermione ,“So how was your first time?” As horrified as she was to know the details of her brother’s sex-life, she was also intensely curious. Besides, Hermione was one of her best friends. She wanted to be able to share things with her. Hermione said, “Well, physically I was a virgin. It hurt and bled and Ron panicked and was worried that he had damaged me. Well, it did hurt and was a little messy, but I knew it might happen and talked Ron into doing it again later that night, and we got better. Like anything else, it takes practice, but we’ve spent some of the last week practicing when we could.” “I was so nave,” said Ginny. “I thought that all I had to do was get us both naked and everything would happen. Well, I got Harry excited enough, but he was done long before I was ready to be finished, and it was my fault. We just had to practice a lot. It got much better!” “You had to practice a lot!” said Hermione grinning. “Well, of course!” said Ginny, also with a big grin on her face. Luna turned to Hannah and asked, “Did you have to practice a lot too? Is it that hard to do?” “It’s not that hard to do, but it is a lot of fun, Luna,” Hannah said. “Once you have found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, I expect you will do it quite regularly.” “That’s more useful information,” a smiling Luna said, seeming to file these little tidbits into her mind. “I always like getting useful information.” “I need one thing from you, Ginny,” Hermione said sort of embarrassed. “The spell for the blankets?” Ginny rolled her eyes, sort of slapped her head and nodded an affirmative. The three girls turned to Hannah. “I think we want to hear your story too,” a serious Luna said. Ginny and Hermione grinned in encouragement. Hannah took a deep breath and said, “I’m used to sleeping with just a nightgown on. Well, when I took the Floo to the Room of Requirement, I had to wait for an all clear to leave, and sometimes that would take a while. One night, we got a message that I might as well sleep, it could be all night. Neville had just his boxers on. I stripped down to my knickers and bra, but then I could not get comfortable with the bra on, so I took it off, and then,” Hannah sighed. “Well, I guess we got a little too comfortable. We had been snogging and had even talked about maybe getting married, if we both survived. And all of a sudden we went too far. And then I got hurt during the Battle, not badly, but when the healer examined me, she asked when my last period was and I was a couple of weeks late. She told me I was pregnant.” “What did Neville do when he found out?” asked Hermione. “Knelt down on one knee and asked me to marry him and be the mother of his children.” “Neville always a gentleman,” Ginny replied. “Well, it was a little late to say no, at least to the part about being a mother. I’m not really all that upset. I’m still working some at the Leaky Cauldron, and there are plenty of other witches who are jealous that I married a big war hero. Plus I really like Neville. He is such a good person.” A grinning Ginny asked, “Neville doesn’t steal the blankets?” Hannah looked ashamed. “Well, really, you see, it’s me! Maybe I ought to have the spell too, because sometimes we wake up, and I have all the blankets.” Ginny laughed and then taught the two girls with partners the spell to keep their partners from stealing all the blankets. On Saturday the 29th, Harry and Ginny moved all that they could to Hogwarts and tried to get their apartments ready. Even with shrinking things, they had to take four trips. They were glad that they had a fireplace in their room connected to the Floo network. “The fireplace is only going to be connected to the New Burrow after today,” Harry said. “As soon as Grimmauld place is secure, it is going to be connected to it as well but nowhere else.” They were getting ready to start putting clothes away when Ginny said, “We need to try out the bed, Harry.” She flopped down on the bed and held out her arms. Harry paused only a moment and then joined Ginny in the bed. They snogged passionately for a while, and then came up for air. It was early in the afternoon, everything was put away except for the clothes and there was nothing on their schedule. Ginny got a wicked grin on her face and pulled out the book. “Use the spell for endurance, Harry. We haven’t really tried out the bed enough.” Harry could not believe how beautiful she was. Ginny grinned and put her arms around Harry, pulling him into her. She backed up and looked at the bra. “Muggle bras have elastic around the back,” Ginny said, turning around to show Harry that her back was bare. “Most of them have straps too. They probably do not come off quite as easily as magical ones do.” Ginny demonstrated by quickly taking off the thin garment that was a magical bra. She then dropped her knickers and pulled Harry into her again. Afterwards, as they lay naked holding on to each other Harry thought, “Maybe I’m the luckiest guy in the world.’ Just holding onto Ginny, her sexy body next to him, after they had made love, was unbelievably pleasurable. Something about the sexual urges having been satisfied, not having to get ready to do anything, but still having that curvy soft female body next to his was just so pleasurable. “I love you,” said Harry gently. “I know,” said an obviously tired Ginny groggily. “This feels so good,” Harry murmured. “Mmmmm,” Ginny purred. Harry did not say anything else and very quickly he could feel the regular breathing that indicated that Ginny was sound asleep. He kept holding her for some minutes, just drinking in the closeness, before slipping into a sound sleep himself. They spent the night at their bed in Hogwarts. By nine o’clock Sunday Morning the entire family was at the New Burrow. “Ginny and I don’t need to take anything with us when we catch the Hogwarts Express,” Hermione said. “We really don’t need to take the train, but we want to. It’s like taking the train is part of the ritual in going to school. My parents are going to pick us up here, Luna too, and Hannah.” “I have to tend the Hogsmeade store,” Ron grumbled. “There are always people buying things at the last minute at both stores, even after the train has left.” “Auror training always starts September 2nd, or the first weekday after September 1st, so people in the Auror Department who have children going to Hogwarts can put them on the train,” Arthur volunteered. “The Department of Magical Law Enforcement wants Harry and Neville plus your Auror guards on the train. We don’t have any firm leads about the two girls who are missing, but we are getting a couple of disturbing rumors.” “Are all of you going to eat in the Great Hall?” asked Molly, changing the subject. Harry replied, “Even after Auror training starts, I’m going to try to eat breakfast and dinner in the Great Hall. We may have to get up early to get breakfast, though.” “I’m going to go from Auror training right to the store,” Ron said. “There is a note on the door that the store is going to be open most evenings and weekends and any other time by appointment.” “When are you going to see Hermione?” asked Angelina. “That’s a little bit of a problem”, Hermione said. “Being head girl, I have to stay at the school. Ron can visit, but only for a little while. Actually, it’s easier for him to come for breakfast and then leave for Auror training.” “You can’t go to Hermione’s room after work?” asked Angelina. Ron and Hermione both had awkward expressions on their face. Finally, Ron said, “I’m going to try to see Hermione some evenings, but I expect most evenings I’m going to be sleeping at the store and Hermione’s going to be at Hogwarts.” On Sunday afternoon, they moved a few personal possessions to the New Burrow. Any furniture that they were going to keep was going to be put in storage by Griffin and Grunt. As they were going to bed Sunday night, Ginny said, “This is the first night we are going to have sex in my parents house. It feels strange. Does it feel strange to you?” “We’re married. What is strange?” said Harry. Ginny replied, “Oh, I don’t know. Thinking that my parents know we are having sex in their house and even approve. What if we have a daughter? How are you going to feel about some boy having sex with your/our daughter?” “After she is old enough and she is married, or before?” asked Harry. “If we are lucky enough to have grown up children, I would hope they would find somebody as wonderful as you are and marry and have sex Happily Ever After.” Ginny said, “Yes, and have someone give them a book like the one we got from my mother before they get married, so that they do not have a first time like ours. We got better in a hurry, but it still took lots of practice. “It’s not like we are in my old bed at the old Burrow. But it’s still my parents’ house, and it still feels strange.” Feeling strange did not keep Ginny from becoming intimate with HER Harry, morning or night, however. |
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