Cheap Trick Lullaby

section three ::. the god empress of kenton

"Harry, meet the reason why this has taken so very, very long." Ron made a grandiose gesture that encompassed the entirety of the rather large anteroom they had entered. It alone was about the size of the individual surrounding houses. Kenton, as The Name had yet to be disputed, was quite unapologetically against the laws of physics. Ron had been known to describe this phenomenon as both the benefit and the peril of having "Uberwitch" for a spouse. Benefit, because their modest terrace house was now a veritable manor -- at least on the inside. Peril, because it was now his solemn duty to cater to her every whim as to the outfitting of every one of those extra and/or expanded upon rooms. "She's drawn up diagrams! Says she has a vision. I think it's time for an intervention."

"I heard that, Ronald!" Seemingly out of nowhere, Ron's bushy-haired wife strode into the room. The two wizards shrank back considerably upon seeing the blazing fervor in her eyes. They had seen her in the grips of this sort of mad, determined orderliness before -- namely on her wedding day and the weeks leading up to it. It had not been pretty then, and this time wasn't looking so promising either. "Well? Are you here to help or stand around looking like a couple of deer in the headlights?" With that, she whipped out her clipboard, and began rattling off assignments. "Ron, I'll need you in the kitchen later, and Harry, you'll do the front parlor, also later. For now, I'll need everyone's help in the library. We've quite a few books and not enough time. Any questions?"

"No ma'am," Harry and Ron replied in unison.

"Good. On to the library. Right this way." She lead them down the hall and to the right at a brisk pace, Ron pulling faces at her back the whole way. Finally, they all stood in the entryway of an enormous, two-story chamber lined with bookshelf-embedded walls. Where the bookshelves ended, the many-paneled, wall-length windows began. Almost the entire wall opposite the double doors was made up of them. Light poured into the room without obstruction. Harry spied a large, crimson-colored, velvety heap on the floor near the windows that he suspected to be the drapes. And in the center of the floor were two near mountains of labeled cardboard boxes that he suspected to be his and Ron's eminent doom. "Right," said Hermione. "Here are your diagrams. Stick with them, please. I'd like to know where everything is when we're done."

Just when Harry was starting to think this might be the worst way he'd spent a Saturday in a very long time, Lady Fate up and decided she might as well put some effort into it. "Hermione? Don't flip your lid or anything, but I think I've lost my diagram." The voice came from somewhere behind the largest of the book mountains, moments before Ginny made her way around to the right side of the heap. "I was doing alright without it until I got to those twelve monstrous volumes chronicling every boring goblin rebellion in the history of the world. No offense," she added. All this was said as she crept through the narrow ravine between Book Mountain Sr. and Book Mountain Jr., carefully watching her step the whole way. Meanwhile, Harry was suddenly finding it hard to keep a sufficient amount of air in his lungs, Hermione was shorting out over the lost of one of her meticulously drawn out diagrams, and Ron looked as though he were planned his escape if things should go any more south. When Ginny looked up, the people in front of her were all engaged in varying degrees of discomfort or, in Hermione's case, agitation. The redhead took one look at Harry, and did a fair impression of some sort of mildly horrified, frozen shock that he was sure he mirrored. Neither had seen the other since the afternoon of what Harry now thought of as the "Griswood Incident" --because by now he'd come to the conclusion that the whole thing had so obviously been the fault of that backward, old fraud who had the nerve to call herself a therapist. If Harry had ever thought he'd save them embarrassment by making the choice that he had, then his theory was now being disproved more and more every second.

Presently, Hermione had her wand out. "Accio diagram! ACCIO DIAGRAM!" she frantically shouted the spell, but to no avail. Ron scuttled off toward the library's railed upper level -- his own diagram clutched firmly in one hand, a book-filled cardboard box under each arm, and several floating in the air behind him. Harry predicated that they wouldn't be seeing him for a while.

"I've already tried that," Ginny was insisting uselessly, apparently trying to rest her eyes on anything and everything in the room that wasn't Harry. "It must be stuck under something really heavy."

"I knew I should have made copies! I knew it!" With that, Hermione violently began zapping up copies of the ones she still held, muttering random locations in the house as she did it. "Kitchen. Front Parlor. Library Upper Level West. Library Upper Level South. Library Upper Level North. Guestroom One. Guest--" She paused to shot Harry a look. "What are you waiting for? Give one of yours to Ginny, keep one for yourself, give the rest to me, and get to work." Harry glanced down at his own hand, and saw that where there had once been a single sheet of parchment there was now a rather thick stack. Judging by the startled yelp from above, Ron had gotten a surprise as well. "They're breeding!" he called down to them, sounding a little horrified.

Harry hastened to fulfill Hermione's command, keeping two of his diagrams, and passing the others to the bushy-haired zealot, who promptly placed all of the library diagrams on a table by the doors, and stormed out of the room in a thunderous flurry of robes and frazzled nerves. The bespectacled wizard then, approached Ginny with caution. "Guess we're working on the same one, then. Er?" He searched the parchment for the label he knew would be there. "Upper Level South," he read, handing Ginny her own copy. Silently, they collected several labeled, color-coded, and numbered boxes designated for their particular section, and levitated them up to the railed landing above. Up the small, spiraling, wire stairs to the upper level they went. "You start at that end, I start at this one?" Harry asked. She nodded her consent, and went to her own end.

It hadn't escaped his notice that she had not spoken a single word to him yet. That simple fact worried him into staring. He had been told ad nauseum that he had the habit of staring when worried about someone, and that the practice usually grated on the subject's nerves. But today he couldn't help it. In between the slow processes of locating the right boxes and arranging countless volumes into their prescribed places, he found himself stealing glances at his filing partner. After about thirty minutes of this surveillance and silence, Harry discovered that all he had accomplished was a not entirely appropriate over-familiarity with the fine curve of her neck and the intricate gleam of her hair in the brightness that came from the library's huge windows.

At last, she glanced at him sharply; looking more annoyed now than embarrassed, and spoke. "I've had just about enough of your staring, Harry James Potter. I said I'm fine, and I am. Now stop your staring, and get back to work. I'm already three-quarters done with my half and you've barely reached the fifth shelf down on your first bookcase. Hurry up before I set Hermione loose on you," she added in a passable semblance of their former teasing banter. It was almost so familiar that Harry had hopes of things returning to the way they had been before the "Griswood Incident." Except... There was a kind of lingering hesitation in her words and in her eyes that effectively put a few cracks in her otherwise flawless mask.

Harry had known for some time that his body had no qualms about reacting to Ginny in a... sensual manner. In truth, during a more youthful period of his life, the rest of him had the constant chore of actively convincing his body not to act on such urges. The drunken fiasco of six years previous was a shining example of his eventual failure at the task. Over the years, however, he had become rather adept at repressing such bodily impulses. That is, until that fateful day, almost a week ago, when Ginny Weasley had ever so politely asked him to shag her. As one might imagine, it had all gone down hill from there, so to speak. In fact, he could hardly recall why he'd had a problem with the suggestion in the first place. Besides, she had asked him, after all. It wouldn't be wrong to give in for the purpose of helping a friend in need. Would it?

"Ginny, I've got to talk to you," he was saying before his brain caught up with his mouth. She turned to him; arms crossed guardedly, her entire pose otherwise expectant, and he found his attention disproportionately focused on a tiny freckle that resided just south of her collarbone. As one might expect, all of this culminated in a small bout of incoherent sputtering while Harry attempted to figure out just exactly what it was he had to say.

Finally, she prompted him when didn't continue. "Yes?"

"Well, I--"

"I've finished the entire upper north wall and half of the upper west!" Ron appeared out of nowhere, interrupting them loudly. "Ask me how!" he enthused, looking inordinately pleased with himself.

"Er... How?"

The ginger-haired wizard was easing into his storytelling mode. Harry could tell by the far-away look in his eyes, his uncharacteristically good posture, and the horribly feigned Scottish accent his voice fell into as he said: "It all started when I was just a wee lad. I had a strong liking for the game of Wizard's Chess. I did not have the galleons --or even the knuts-- for a magical chess set of me own. One day, I found a perfectly good Muggle chess set just lying there near a bin where someone had disposed of it. It was me dream come true except for one thing. It was not magical. You could only play that stupid Muggle chess game with it! So I set about finding a spell that would properly animate the pieces so that I would finally have me very own Wizard's Chess set. I scoured every magical text me dear family owned until one day I found something! A spell for personifying inanimate objects! Me older brother, Bill, as he was then no longer an under-aged wizard, cast the spell for me. Before me very eyes the pieces came to life, and assembled themselves into their rightful places. M' little boy heart filled with such joy! Of course, that was all they would do, because the spell couldn't change their rotten attitudes." The last was said in his normal voice, if a bit on the bitter side. "Silly Muggle artifacts," he muttered darkly to himself before snapping abruptly out of his dismal mind-set as though it had not occurred at all. "The moral of the story is that it works to get the books to assemble themselves according to the diagrams. Though sometimes they don't like the book they've been placed next to, and they start arguing who has the better story and whatnot." He waved this behavior off with a causal, dismissive gesture. "Overall, it's a good system. Faster, in any case."

Forty-five minutes, nine angry books, seven awkward moments, and four & half conjured cuppas later, they had fully stocked every bookcase for which they still had instructions. Ginny's first elusive diagram had remained to be seen, and the Book Mountain Range had been diminished to a couple of Book Molehills. All agreed that it was time to abandon this particular project to more capable hands, and departed to the kitchen in search of food and their fearless leader, in that order.

The sight that greeted the three upon arrival was that of Hermione caught up in an extremely random storm of magical multi-tasking. On the kitchen table, a quill was busy drawing up a brand new library diagram, and apparently making dozens of copies without being directed to. Orbiting her head at a safe but legible distance, were several hulking tomes with such titles as Magical Home and Garden, Home Expansion Charms, Muggles & You, and Kitchen Enchantments for Ninnies. Each lay open, and turned their pages of their own volition. Hermione herself appeared to be powering all these things while simultaneously undertaking a seemingly fruitless search through the miniature labyrinth of cardboard boxes on the floor. When she saw them all, she gave a panicked squeak. "You're not done! It's not time for you to be done! Why have you stopped? Don't tell me you lost all of diagrams now! I made copies!"

The accosted three all held their hands up in surrender, but only Ginny was brave enough to speak. "Calm down. We're finished. All except for that bit there's no diagram for."

"But... How?" She looked as though she had expected them to still be at it a fortnight later.

"Magic, Mrs. Granger-Weasley. Magic," Ron said as he stepped over boxes and boxes and even more boxes to investigate a pot that set on the range and contained some slow-boiling substance. "When'd you make soup?"

He had already begun to scoop some into the ladle before she had the chance to say: "That's a potion for cleaning the silver." He took a closer look, and saw that any part of the ladle that touched the potion —-and hadn't been strictly silver-- had been eaten away in the few seconds it took for him to submerge it in fluid.

"Do you want to give me more of a warning next time? This stuff could have had me for its evening snack!"

"If only," she muttered under her breath. "There are some pies heating in the oven. It'll be a while since you've finished ahead of schedule, but in the meantime I'm sure you could all get a head start on your afternoon tasks. Harry, you and Ginny can start work on the front parlor while Ron and I sort out this kitchen." There was that manic gleam in her eyes again so no one bothered to protest. Harry and Ginny obediently collected their new diagrams, trooped out of the room, crossed the entryway, and entered the door on the opposite end. It was a fairly large room, not quite as big as the library, but obviously expanded upon nonetheless. As before, there was a pre-distributed pile of cardboard boxes in the center of the room. However, this time, they varied in size and weight. Some were labeled "Furniture", others "Accessories."

"Apparently, she doesn't trust me to handle my own assignment anymore," Ginny groused whilst they began with magically sorting the boxes out by size. "One bloody lost diagram, and suddenly I'm demoted to Harry's little helper."

"D'you reckon she's getting a bit too power hungry?" Harry contemplated aloud.

"I've already made plans for a coup later today, if you want to join the resistance," the redhead quipped, pointing her wand at one of the largest boxes, which instantly fell away to reveal a sizable chaise.

"Actually, I've done the resistance thing before, and it's really very tiring," he replied, a hint of seriousness in his voice. "If it's all the same to you, I'll sit this one out." With a few casual flicks of his wand, two lounge chairs, a small side table, and a tall lamp were unveiled. Presently, Ginny was scrutinizing him with a very puzzling expression indeed. He was beginning to understand what she had meant about the staring. Words started to flow from his mouth as he fell into his nervous habit of rambling to fill awkward silences. "I suspect that there are worse things than Hermione ruling the universe. At least we'd all be super organized. Though, if she had it her way, we'd all be working for the house elves instead of the other way around. And then where would Dean and Seamus find the time to sneak around and shag?"

All the while, the look she was giving him got odder by the second. Abruptly, she inquired: "Harry, what were you going to tell me earlier? You know, in the library?"

At that, he regained some of the reckless resolve he'd felt before. He realized that right then was probably the best chance he was going to get to say what he needed to say. "The thing is-- Wait," he interrupted himself. He then proceeded to check around for any signs of Ron Weasley, AKA: The Great Interceptor. He saw none, but Imperturbed the door all the same. Seizing both of Ginny's hands, he led her to sit on the chaise, seating himself facing her. "Ginny, we've been friends since snakes had legs. We've literally been through almost everything together. I've been thinking all this week about what you asked me at the Tea Den."

The ginger-haired witch interjected quickly when he said that. "About that... I'm sorry. I should never have asked such a thing of you."

"No, Gin... You see... I was more than a little shocked that day. You gave me a lot to process all at once. I panicked a bit." The look she sent him suggested that "a bit" was somewhat understating the matter. "I've noticed recently that you've not been entirely happy with the way things are going for you, romantically speaking. You've never seemed content with anyone you've been involved with. It wasn't until that day at the Tea Den that I found out why. This...problem you have is making you unhappy. What I should have said is that there is nothing I wouldn't do for you, and that includes this. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you still want to, let's..." Here, he found that he was becoming rather adept at clearly indicating sexual intercourse without having to actually say the words.

For what had to be a good three minutes, Ginny appeared speechless. Sure her mouth hung slightly agape as though she was just on the verge of saying something, but no words came out. Harry rather thought that might not be an entirely good sign so he prompted her. "Well?"

"I don't know what to say to that, Harry," she replied in a kind of sincerely awed murmur.

"Just say 'yes'," he supplied helpfully.

"No, I mean I honestly don't know what to say. Why are you doing this?" she added with a sudden hard look in her eyes that didn't bode well.

"I said before. Because I care about you. Because you asked me. Because... I want to."

"You want to?" The redhead was incredulous.

"Is that so hard to believe?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Tell me right now, honestly, if this is out of some warped, good-intentioned sense of pity."

It was Harry's turn to be incredulous now. "Honestly, it's not! I would never pity you. You know that. You're about the strongest, most capable person that I know; that I've ever known. I want to do this, because I want you."

"Well, alright then," she said simply.

"Alright?"

"Alright. Let's do it. Let's have sex," she clarified as though there was some way he couldn't know what she meant by that. When Harry turned an extremely embarrassing shade of pink at his words, Ginny automatically began to have a laugh at his expense. "Really, Harry, you'll have to say it sometime. What happens when you have to give your children the proverbial talk? Go on, I said it before. You say it."

She's serious, isn't she?, he thought, horrified.

"Go on," she urged in that way he could never refuse.

"Fine," he sighed. "Will you have sex with me?"

This was the exact moment that both Ron and Hermione had decided to break down the ward, and enter to room. Hermione stopped dead in the middle of asking why they'd put up the ward in the first place. Ron just pulled a face, and made an unusual noise at the back of his throat the sounded partly disgusted and partly disbelieving. Ginny burst into peals of laughter. All the while, Harry's face was starting to resemble a beet.

Hermione was first one to locate her vocal chords. "Er... The food's ready when you are."