Firewhisky Advice

Harry and Ginny stood on the front porch of the Burrow. 'You do it,' she whispered.

'No, you.'

'Coward.'

'Coward? Me?'

'Yes, you!'

'Gin, you're the one with five brothers ready to pound me into dust for defiling their baby sister!'

'Oh, for Merlin's sake, Harry,' Ginny muttered. 'Just open the bloody door already!'

'No.' Harry's chin set in stubborn lines. 'If you want to go in so badly, you open the door!'

'Why do I have to open the door?'

'Because -' The door flew open, and Katie stood watching them with an inquisitive look.

'You two going to come in, or stand out there and argue over who opens the door all afternoon?' Guiltily, Harry and Ginny trailed after Katie into the kitchen. A cacophony of sound greeted them. All the Weasleys were in attendance for lunch.

Bill sat at the scrubbed wooden table with his four-month old daughter, Madeline in his arms, and three-year old Victoire in a chair next to him. Fleur was helping Molly finish lunch, along with Penny, Percy's wife, and Bronwyn, Charlie's wife. Charlie was nowhere to be seen, but he could be heard trying to catch his rather mischievous daughter, Isabella, and bring her into the kitchen. George was unsuccessfully attempting to persuade a rather pregnant Katie to sit down and get off her feet. Percy was trying to maintain a somewhat unnatural state of cleanliness with his two-year old son, Parker, which was a very strenuous task, given the general boisterousness of the Weasley household. Ron slid a pie in the oven, while Arthur and Hermione set the table as they debated the flaws of the proposed law for the treatment of magical beings that had been passed by the Wizangamot two weeks ago.

It was loud. Chaotic. Totally and completely unorganized.

But Harry wouldn't have wanted it any other way. The flat may have been where he lived, but this would always be home to him. A chorus of greetings met Harry and Ginny as they wound through the pandemonium and found their seats at the table. 'Is it just me, or has this kitchen gotten bigger since I was twelve?' Harry asked no one in particular.

'Oh, it's gotten bigger.' Arthur set a plate down in front of Ginny. 'We had to. Once all you lot got married. Gets downright inconvenient to hold lunches outdoors when it's cold like this.' Harry shook his head in amazement.

'Here we are! Lunch is ready.' Molly began to levitate platters of food to the table. A bowl of creamed parsnips landed in front of Ginny, who went pale under her freckles, and tried to shove it away without attracting attention. Harry started to take a slice of steak-and-kidney pie, but a noise from Ginny made him pass the dish down the table. He studied the contents of the table warily. He reached for the dish of chicken casserole with an upraised eyebrow. She nodded, and he ladled some onto his plate. He glanced at Ginny from the corner of his eye. She gingerly poked at a pile of mashed potatoes on her plate, but didn't look like she was going to bolt in the near future.

Molly watched the silent interactions that would have gone unnoticed by the others. Ginny wasn't usually a picky eater, but today, she bypassed most of what was on the table. She also thought Ginny had been looking a little peaked lately, or would have, if she didn't have an air about her. 'Are you feeling all right, Ginny?' Molly's voice rose above the din to her daughter. The table fell silent and everybody's attention zeroed to Ginny.

'Actually, Ginny and I have an announcement...' Harry didn't even get the rest of the sentence out before Molly had pulled both of them into her signature bone-crushing hugs. Suddenly, she stopped, putting both of them at arm's length.

'You are, aren't you?' Harry and Ginny nodded and she pulled them back into a hug.

'What are they?' asked Ron, who had been working his way through his lunch and hadn't been paying much attention to the scene around him.

'I believe, little bro, that we will be uncles!' exclaimed George.

'Ewwww!' Ron still hadn't gotten used to the idea of Harry and his baby sister having sex. Soon, the table was buzzing with thoughts of whether the baby would be a girl or a boy, if they'd thought of names, had they decided to move to a bigger home yet. Ron was unusually silent, as he toyed with the remains of his food.

'Ron, what's the matter? Do you feel okay?' asked a worried Hermione. If Ron wasn't eating, he must be sick.

'Oh, yeah... just thinking...'

'Don't hurt yourself,' she said wryly. Ron just rolled his eyes.

'No, really. I was thinking that... maybe we...' He gestured toward Ginny and Harry.

'Have a baby?' Ron shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

'Yeah...' he said, blushing. Hermione looked at him, rather the same way his mother did when she was weighing the truthfulness of what he just said.

'All right, then,' she said, kissing him on the cheek.

After lunch, Arthur pulled Harry out to his shed, under the pretense of showing him his newest Muggle contraption. Arthur knew Ginny could be volatile at times, and he was glad he wasn't going to have to live with her for the next several months. Harry was going to need some advice from a battle-scarred veteran.

Bill returned to the kitchen from putting Victoire down for a nap. 'Where's Dad?'

'Out in ze shed with 'arry. Some new Muggle contraption,' Fleur replied. Bill grinned to himself. Ah, the Weasley tradition, he thought. Arthur had taken him out to the shed when they told the family about Victoire.

'I think I'll go see what it is,' Bill said casually. He jerked his head to the door and Charlie nodded. One by one, the others would find a reason to go to the shed, too.

Bill knocked on the door. 'Dad? Harry?' The door opened a crack, then wider to admit Bill. Arthur promptly shut the door.

'Okay, Harry,' he said, conjuring a bottle of Firewhisky and pouring each of them a healthy shot, 'once your baby is here, it will be one of the most incredible things you'll ever experience. But the next several months...' He shuddered with the experience of a man who had seen war and lived to tell about it. Bill nodded vigorously in agreement.

'First off,' Bill began, 'she'll start crying. For no reason at all. Don't even bother asking why, she won't know and that'll make her cry harder.' Mildly alarmed, Harry took a gulp of the drink.

'Then, at some point,' Arthur interjected, 'she'll start to ask you if you think she's fat. There's no right answer, son, I'm sorry to say. If you say no, she'll say you're lying.'

'If you say yes, she'll say you're an insensitive berk,' chimed in Bill.

'And don't say a word about the ankles,' breathed Arthur, fear briefly etched on his face.

'And when she feels the need to clean the whole ruddy flat, just leave her be,' advised Bill. Harry could only nod. He gulped the rest of his Firewhisky and Bill promptly refilled it.

And so it went -- advice on dealing with a pregnant woman. George, Ron, Charlie, and Percy wandered into the shed, and the bottle of Firewhisky was passed around. George toasted Harry as, 'the Boy-Who-Knocked-Up-My-Baby-Sister'. Charlie confessed he'd rather face a Hungarian Horntail on his own than try to 'help' during childbirth. Percy, with a few shots of Firewhisky down him, launched into a rather harrowing tale of what happened when Penny had Parker. It seemed to involve lots of threats about slowly removing Percy's bits and feeding them to a hippogriff. Harry dimly thought Ron looked more than a little shaken by the description of what would happen during childbirth, but at that point, he'd been tossing back Firewhisky with astounding regularity as the warnings became more and more dire.

All of a sudden, there was a blinding light in the shed. 'Hem-hem.' Harry jumped.

'Sweet Merlin, how did Umbridge find us?' he asked wildly. All of the Weasley men fell silent as they turned around to face seven very upset Weasley women. 'Ginny!' Harry exclaimed brightly. 'You're so pretty...' He smiled at her, in what he thought was an appealing manner, but ruined it by belching. Loudly. Hermione surveyed the group with a look that would have put Minerva McGonagall to shame.

'Men,' she said huffily, and bent to get a shoulder under Ron, who was trying to stand up with all the grace of a newborn unicorn. Silently, the Weasley women corralled their men. They would save the punishment for the morning. When the hangover hit.

*****

Harry woke up and didn't recognize where he was. He fumbled for his glasses and winced at the light that came through the curtains in the sitting room. He didn't remember getting home last night from the Burrow. He was tucked up on the sofa of his and Ginny's flat. He looked around, wondering what time it was, when he noticed Ginny, calmly sipping tea in the squashy armchair in the corner. She was too calm. 'How are you feeling?' she asked.

'D'ya have to yell, Gin?'

Ginny raised her eyebrow. Oh, hell... Harry knew he was in trouble. Big trouble. 'I'm not yelling. How much Firewhisky did you drink, exactly?'

Harry groaned and let his head drop back to the sofa. Ouch. Bad idea. He squinted at Ginny. 'I dunno... it got hazy after the first few shots. Then once the rest of your brothers came in, we just passed the bottle round.'

'Why were you out in the shed with Dad and Bill drinking like a bunch of sodding drunks?' Ginny asked, still in that oh-so-pleasant tone of voice that could send shivers of outright fear down Harry's spine.

'They were offering advice. For Merlin's sake, Ginny, can you just kill me now? I think my head's about to fall off anyway...' Ginny was not in a mood to be merciful. Neither were Mum, Fleur, Bronwyn, Penny, Katie, or Hermione, she imagined.

'What kind of 'advice'?' Harry could see Ginny put the air quotes around the word advice, with an ominous air he usually had only seen with Molly. He closed his eyes and drew in as deep a breath as he could manage without throwing up.

'Er, just things I can do for you... to make you comfortable...'

'Did that include getting drunk on a Sunday afternoon?' Ginny could be an inquisitor on the Wizengamot if she put her mind to it.

'Um... No... that was an accident.' Ginny gave him a patented Molly Weasley look. Harry wondered if Ginny had been born knowing how to do that, or did Molly offer classes? 'Really, Gin, it was an accident. Your dad just thought he could pass on some fatherly advice on how to make the next couple of months go smoothly. Honestly.' Harry groaned and closed his eyes again. He cracked open one eyelid and did the stupidest thing he could have done in this situation.

He asked Ginny to make him a cup of tea.

She dumped the nearly full mug she had in her hand on his head, and stalked to the bathroom to take a shower.

Once Ginny was out of the bathroom, Harry was rather ineffectually rummaging around in the medicine cabinet looking for something - anything - to make the hangover go away. Not finding anything promising, he contented himself with a hot shower. It seemed to take horrendous amounts of effort to find something to wear to work and even more effort to put the clothes on. Feeling a somewhat deflated sense of accomplishment at managing to dress himself, Harry dragged himself to the kitchen for breakfast. Ginny was at the stove, making more tea and toasting several slices of bread with her wand. She didn't even look over her shoulder when she gave a flick of the wand toward the table and a mug of something emitting purple sparks appeared on the surface of the table. 'Drink it,' she ordered. Harry obeyed with alacrity, not wanting to antagonize Ginny any further. It was already looking like a long week (or two) on the couch for him.

Harry Flooed to George and Ron's joke shop, in preparation to heading over to the Ministry. He wanted to see if they felt nearly as bad as he did. Strength in numbers and all that. George looked as pale as Ginny did after a round of morning sickness. Ron looked like his own hair hurt him. 'Did either of you get the inquisition this morning?' George and Ron nodded gingerly.

'What the bloody hell were we thinking?' moaned Ron, sliding down, so his head rested on the counter.

'That we were Weasley men, trying to help poor Harry here deal with the insanity that is a pregnant Weasley woman,' George smirked, as much as his hangover allowed. 'You're in for a rough ride, mate. Oh, and Katie's having twins, by the way... Didn't quite get to that yesterday.' George smiled in an awed sort of way. 'If they're boys, we've decided to name one after Fred.'

Ron snickered, 'At least they'll be prepared at Hogwarts for dealing with a set of Weasley twins. '

Ron was quiet for a moment. 'Remind me when Hermione and I get around to having one of those, that we don't repeat the event in the shed. We'll do it in the flat upstairs...'

'Right,' said George. 'Good plan, Ronniekins. Harry, come round at lunch if you want, all right? Neither of us could handle breakfast. Did you?'

'No. Thanks, I'll come by.' Harry left the shop and went to his office. He knew he looked worse for wear, even with the hangover potion. He tried to do as little as he could get away with doing that morning. A dull headache pounded behind his eyes.

Shacklebolt poked his head into Harry's office at some point, gave Harry a look up and down, and simply said, 'I saw Arthur and Percy on my way in this morning. I can only imagine what you got up to.' Harry's only response was a grunt. Shacklebolt just chuckled and left. Harry laid his head on his desk, jabbed his wand toward the door to close it, and promptly fell asleep.

He woke up to the rumbles emanating from his stomach. It had been a long time since lunch yesterday. Harry scrubbed a hand over his face, and shoved his glasses on his nose. The headache had backed off enough to where he felt he could function. He headed to the joke shop. He needed to talk to Ron and George. The past few days had been one wild ride, and Harry was inwardly clinging to his own equilibrium.

The shop closed at lunch. They had to start doing that after the war and business picked up so much, Ron and George would go from dawn to nightfall without eating. Harry whispered the spell to open the door, and slipped inside. He headed up the stairs to the flat and joined Ron and George. 'You all right?' George asked sympathetically. He had fainted when Katie told him she was pregnant.

'Yeah. I think so.'

'No, you're not,' George snorted. 'You're spinning madly out of control, and you don't know what to do or say, because you realize your whole life is changing as it's happening, and you feel like you can't keep up.' He took a bite of his sandwich. 'It's how I felt with Katie. Still feel that way, to be perfectly honest.'

Harry leaned back in his chair. 'I'm amazed, awed, insanely happy, and absolutely and totally petrified.' He picked up a sandwich, and methodically tore the crusts off the bread. 'I'm not ready to be a father. I don't even know what one is supposed to do!'

'Do what you do with Teddy,' said Ron.

'I keep telling myself that, but Ginny was right. He lives with Andromeda, and I get to do all the fun stuff, but not the real dad stuff.' He pushed a pickle slice around the plate with a forefinger. 'The only fathers I've ever really known are my uncle -- ' frowns around the table -- 'and Arthur.'

'You're never ready. For any of it,' Ron said unexpectedly. Harry and George gaped at Ron. 'What?' Ron snapped.

'Profundity from unexpected sources,' George said smoothly. Ron flushed.

'It's what Dad told me the night before I married Hermione,' Ron explained defensively. 'Said he wasn't ready when he married Mum, or had Bill...'

'I'll say,' interjected George in an undertone.

'Or any of us,' Ron continued. 'Even when the twins, Ginny, and I were born, and let's face it, at that point, it's ready or not...' Ron shrugged. He fixed Harry with a look and asked, 'Are you really okay with all this?'

'Yeah! I'm thrilled. Just scared I'm going to screw the poor kid up.'

'Nah, Ginny won't let you,' George said.

'But what if...'

'Harry,' began Ron, 'think of what your uncle would do in a situation, then do the opposite.'