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SIYE Time:20:52 on 28th March 2024
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Marriage Is a Great Institution
By Poseida

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Category: Post-OotP
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: Comedy, Fluff, Humor
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 26
Summary: "'By "marry",' Harry added hopefully, giving her a tentative smile, 'I mean "be my wife", not, you know, "Merry Christmas".'"
Hitcount: Story Total: 8283







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It all boiled down to this, Ginny supposed. Seven years spent in these stone halls–seven years of laughing and crying and fearing–seven years of mundane homework and extraordinary impossibilities–all ended, just like this, in one Leaving Feast.

It didn’t seem quite real to her, and she wasn’t even the one leaving. She had another year of halls and laughs and homework to get through still (she could skip the impossibilities, now; with Voldemort gone from Earth and Harry gone from Hogwarts, how could anything possibly compare to those strange events that occurred year after year, steadily, dependably? Come next summer, she knew she’d feel strange without near-death experiences).

But Ron was leaving. She would be the only Weasley at Hogwarts now, which was such a strange, funny thought that her stomach flipped over with anxiety. Having her brother so near, so aware of her comings and goings, had been such a nuisance for all those years, and now she was afraid it was a nuisance she wouldn’t be able to live without. She even missed him beating up her boyfriends for taking liberties.

Not, Ginny thought miserably, that there were going to be any liberties taken, since Harry was leaving as well, and she probably was only going to see him at Christmas holidays and perhaps one or two Hogsmeade weekends, if she was lucky, which she generally wasn’t. Even if she did see him on “one or two Hogsmeade weekends”, she thought it highly unlikely they were going to get up to any mischief whatsoever then, because she would start babbling and probably waste all the hours she had with him telling him about her Potions exam and how she had really gotten number nineteen right but Professor Grinnings had just misread “shorn reed” as “hornsreed” and–

Well, the fact of the matter was, she was not going to have any liberties taken at all next year. Not even a fraction of a liberty. Not even a smidgen.

Damn!

She sighed heavily and ran her hands through her hair one more time. It didn’t look very nice, but she was too cross with herself to care. Honestly, she was missing things that weren’t even gone yet! It was stupid of her to feel this way. She had lots of friends in her year, and of course Harry would write her (as if Harry’s dry, poorly-written letters were at all on the same level as Harry’s chapped lips and the feel of his long, rough fingers on her skin. Who was she kidding? Next year was going to be absolute monotonous torture!).

She shook her head to clear it, grabbed her wand, and stalked out of the room before she lost herself in more inane reveries. She was a woman, after all. A strong, independent, seventeen-year-old woman. She was a Weasley, for heaven’s sake! She could certainly last nine or ten paltry months without a man.

The problem was, really, that she was thinking these thoughts as she stomped down the stairs to the common room, and once she got to the common room, she realized that Harry was there, sitting sprawled on the couch, staring at the fire, and the bend of his elbow as he pulled his fingers through his hair over and over again was so delicious that Ginny was fully ready to drop any and all pretenses she had of surviving without him and leave school.

She was plotting the best route to his mouth–should she initiate a conversation or just sit down beside him and pull his head to hers?–when he realized she was standing there and leapt up.

“Ginny!” he exclaimed, his voice cracking. She narrowed her eyes at him curiously. He had been thinking about sex, probably, because she had figured out that whenever Harry thought about sex and then looked at her afterwards, he turned as red as a Weasley, and right now he was practically the color of Ron’s fourth-year dress robes.

She would have liked to be standoffish and prissy about it, but it was really very hard when his eyes were so lovely, and when she had been contemplating similar ideas not thirty seconds earlier.

“Hi, Harry,” she answered dubiously, stepping off the stairs. “Are you all right?” she added, just to torture him.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding and relaxing a little. His skin was back to normal, which drew Ginny’s attention to the dark circles under his eyes so much that she began frantically thinking of ways to make him blush again. Take off her shirt? Her skirt? Tell him that she thought the way his hair fell over his forehead was really wonderful?

Instead, she blurted, “Are you still tired?”

He looked at her strangely, so she gestured at her eyes, a little embarrassed. He had only just gotten out of the hospital wing after sleeping for days straight after the final battle, and she felt slightly guilty for bringing up that topic again when neither of them wanted to talk about it.

“Oh!” he said. “No. Well, kind of, but not as much, not really.”

“Oh, all right.” She smiled and took a step toward him. “Good.”

He looked at her for a couple of moments, then seemed to realize that she was really there and stepped towards her, sliding his hands down to her wrists and pulling her towards him.

This, thought Ginny dreamily as he kissed the corner of her mouth, was really what she had been fighting for during the war: the right to come home, smile at and kiss a man you loved. She bit Harry’s bottom lip gently and put one arm around his neck, tugging him closer. She felt his fingers slide over her shoulders, down the curve of her spine, to her–

“Ew! Oh, Merlin; oh, Merlin, Merlin, Merlin; Harry, what the hell are you doing to my sister?”

Harry and Ginny jumped apart, bumping noses in the process. Harry not-so-surreptitiously removed his hand from Ginny’s arse and looked at Ron sheepishly. Ginny rubbed the bridge of her nose and scowled at her brother, even though minutes earlier she had been lamenting never again having him break up her trysts. It was a lot easier, she realized, to lament that when, you know, he wasn’t actually breaking up her trysts.

“Ron, bugger off,” she said, exasperated.

“I don’t know if you noticed, Ginny, but his hand was sort of on your arse,” Ron reminded her, glaring menacingly at Harry.

“Actually, Ron,” Ginny said cheerfully, winking, “I did notice. But thanks for reminding me!”

A strange noise came out of Ron’s throat; he sounded as though he were being strangled. Ginny looked at Harry to see him blushing a little, but looking very satisfied with himself nonetheless.

Ron stopped choking and looked back and forth between them briefly.

“Okay, fine,” he said, finally relaxing with a frown. “I will let it go this once. But I had better not see your fingers anywhere near Ginny’s bum or chest for all of summer holidays, Harry, or I’ll… er… well, okay, I’ll get really angry, right?”

“Thanks, Ron,” said Harry, sounding as though he didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried or amused, “I’ll keep it in mind.”

(Ginny sincerely hoped he didn’t.)

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because Harry is a complete nitwit about girls anyway,” Ron reminded Ginny.

“No problem,” Ginny replied jovially, grinning. “I am more than willing to educate him.”

She grabbed Harry by the elbow then, and pulled him out of the common room, lest he took Ron seriously. If there wasn’t going to be anything for her brother to ruin next school year, Ginny was certainly not going to let this summer be the same.

Once they were a ways away from the portrait hole, Ginny stopped and whirled on Harry.

“Harry–"

At the same time, he said, “Ginny–"

They stopped and looked at each other. Ginny flushed, though she didn’t know why. Harry motioned for her to continue.

“I was just going to say that you had better forget everything Ron just said,” Ginny told him with a little grin. “My arse is completely available.”

“That’s good to know,” Harry said with a cheeky smile that made Ginny believe once and for all that Harry was going to be nearly all right about “the Voldemort thing”, after all was said and done; he would have nightmares and spells of anger, yes, but a boy couldn’t be seriously damaged if he could still look at his girlfriend as if he wanted to shove her up against the wall and take all of her liberties, older brothers or no.

“I’m growing quite fond of it, you know,” Harry said. Ginny blinked.

“Of what?”

“Your bum,” Harry said slowly, as if she were mentally deranged. He was blushing again; Ginny supposed that Weasley habit was definitely rubbing off on him. (She wanted him to be around her enough for many more Weasley habits to rub off on him.)

“Oh,” she answered. “Well, it’s growing quite fond of you, too.”

Harry smiled awkwardly and kissed her; Ginny sank into the kiss, but just as her knees were going all wobbly, she tore herself away and asked suddenly,

“Wait; what were you going to say?”

“When?” Harry didn’t look like he wanted to say anything.

“Just now.”

“Oh!” He suddenly looked as though he were going to be sick. “Well–okay, no, never mind.”

“Harry!” Ginny put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You can’t just start saying something like that and then not tell me! I’m interested now.”

“No, no, it’s all right; trust me, you will be fine not knowing.”

“Harry Potter! I am really thinking about revoking your rights to my bum if you don’t tell me what you were going to say.”

She would follow through with it, too, Ginny thought menacingly, then realized that she wouldn’t.

“Don’t you think you could, you know, revoke my rights to your–er–I don’t know–toes or something?” Harry asked hopefully. “I mean, seeing as you said your bum was growing fond of me, too.”

Harry!

“All right, all right, fine. Fine, I can do this,” he said, more to himself than to her.

He took a few deep breaths, as if to steady his nerves, then dropped very ungracefully to his knees on the stone floor.

“Ouch,” he muttered.

“Oh, no!” Ginny exclaimed, reaching down to help him up. “Are you all right? Here, I’ll help you up; we can go to the hospital wing; maybe you didn’t take enough Replenishing Potion this morning.”

“Ginny!” Harry spluttered, trying to pull away. “Stop!”

“Oh, dear, am I making it worse? Where does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t hurt anywhere! I’m on my knees on purpose!”

Ginny stood up very quickly and looked at him. Her eyes were like saucers.

“Did you d-drop something?” she stuttered, realizing even as she said it that it wasn’t true.

“No,” Harry said. His eyebrows furrowed in the way that meant he was really frustrated. Ginny felt a little guilty for thinking more about how nice he looked when he was upset than about how he was annoyed with her. “Look, here’s the thing. I mean, I know you still have a year left, but we don’t, you know, have to do it right away–because I don’t really mind waiting, only I sort of thought it would be nice to–well, you know–because I reckon I just pretty much love you, and I sort of want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I’d rather, well, you know, start sooner, and also this is brilliant because… well, all right, I’m not sure how it’s brilliant for you, but I reckon it’d be brilliant for me if you, er… okay, well, will you marry me?”

She blinked at him, not knowing what to say. Her mind was whirring along top speed–faster than top speed, even, unfortunately–but her heart was stuck on how Harry loved her, even though he had said it before.

“By ‘marry’,” Harry added hopefully, giving her a tentative smile, “I mean ‘be my wife’, not, you know, ‘Merry Christmas’.”

“Harry, I–”

He stood up.

“I have a ring, too,” he said, stepping a little closer to her. Ginny wished, for the first time in her life, that he’d step away; she couldn’t think straight when he smelled so good, like soap and cinnamon.

“It’s right–oh, Merlin. Okay, er, hang on, I left it in the room, but that’s fine, because-- Accio ring!”

A blue velvet box came roaring around the corner and hit Ginny squarely in the head. Her knees buckled with surprise, and she fell down.

“Oh, Merlin. No, all right, that did not happen,” Harry said anxiously, crouching down. “Ginny, are you all right?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she said, sitting up and hitting his chin with her head in the process.

“Ow!” they both shouted. Ginny leaned against the wall, rubbing the spot where the box had hit, and scowled at Harry.

“I didn’t mean to have that happen,” Harry told her, swallowing nervously. He was on the floor, now, too, but given the circumstances Ginny wasn’t finding that as advantageous as she normally would.

“It was just a fortunate coincidence, yeah?” she asked him, rolling her eyes. His face fell.

“Okay, look, Ginny, I’m sorry; bad timing–bad proposal, yes, I get it,” Harry mumbled, getting up.

“Harry!”

Ginny grabbed his hand (his nice, warm hand with long fingers, she thought for a minute, then forced herself to get back to the matter at hand) and yanked him back down.

“You can’t ask me a question and not let me answer it,” she said crossly. “Hang on a second, all right?”

Harry waited.

“No, okay, ask the question again,” Ginny said hurriedly, squirming under his scrutiny and feeling more than a little silly, “or I’m going to make a complete mess of it.”

“No way!” Harry protested. He actually began to move away from her, using his hands to push him backwards across the floor. “Asking twice is twice as many possibilities for mucking it up!”

“Harry, not to be cruel, but I really don’t think you can muck it up anymore,” reasoned Ginny, reaching out and patting his hand comfortingly.

“Now I’m definitely not asking,” Harry muttered.

“Harry, come on,” she said.

“No!”

“I’ll let you touch my bum,” she wheedled. Harry glanced at that part of her anatomy briefly and sighed.

“Fine,” he huffed. Despite his misgivings, he looked very earnest when he said, “Er–will you–that is, will you marry me?”

“Okay, right,” Ginny said. “Er, no.”

“Oh,” said Harry, dejectedly, beginning to get up again.

“No, hang on, Harry, sit back down.”

Harry sat, sulking.

“It’s not that I don’t–well, you know, love you, because I do–but we’re only seventeen, you know? And that’s too young to be married.”

“No, I know, we could have a really long engagement, and–”

“Harry, I don’t want to be the only girl in school who’s engaged,” said Ginny, cutting him off and moving towards him. “I mean, and what if you meet a really great witch from, I don’t know, Beauxbatons, and she’s half-Veela and really smart, and you want to marry her but you can’t because you’re engaged to me–”

“I want to marry you,” Harry interrupted. “Just you.”

He seemed very, very certain; Ginny tried to ignore the way her insides turned to liquid.

“Yes, but I mean, you know, what if I don’t–well, I’m not saying that, because I actually do–but say, for argument’s sake, that I didn’t–“ Ginny realized how little sense she was making and smiled a little. Harry smiled back nervously. “Also, I would never hear the end of it from my brothers.”

Harry smiled a bit wider and he touched her cheek. She leant into his hand and felt her world slide slowly back to where it was supposed to be as she added, “And, Harry, what if you’re rubbish in bed? I would be shackled to this man who is just terrible–“

“I am not rubbish in bed,” Harry informed her with a self-assured grin.

“Well, compared to me,” Ginny said, hooking her arm around his neck, “everyone is pretty much rubbish.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, distractedly, his eyes on her mouth, before he kissed her.

“We should work on, er, disproving your theories about this ‘rubbish in bed’ idea,” Harry said against her lips.

“Probably,” Ginny agreed. He kissed her jaw, and she would have let him continue on down to her neck, but she remembered something.

“Hang on,” she said, pushing him away. “Let me see this ring.”

“What?” Harry said. “No!”

“No, I want to.”

“That’s not fair,” he said, but she reached for the box and opened it anyway.

“Oh, wow,” she breathed, peering at the ring. “Harry, this is… indescribable.”

“Really?” He sounded very pleased.

“Yes! I didn’t even know they sold rings this terrible.”

“What?” Harry, who had been leaning in for a kiss, pulled away abruptly.

“Oh, no offense, Harry,” Ginny responded, smiling as she looked up at Harry, who looked a bit like a fish as he opened and closed his mouth, “but it is pretty awful.”

“Excuse me,” Harry began. He looked like he was torn between being offended and being amused.

“I wager it doesn’t even fit,” she said to herself. Harry tried to yank the box away, but failed.

“I was right!” It didn’t fit past her second knuckle. “Harry, you have terrible taste. Next time you propose, I’ll pick out the ring, all right?”

“What makes you think I’m going to propose again?” Harry asked.

Ginny looked up at him very quickly, suddenly afraid that she had ruined every single chance with him, and completely ready to revoke everything she said if it meant that she didn’t have to live without him.

“Well, I–” she said, then clamped her mouth shut.

“Oh, no,” Harry said definitely, getting to his feet. He shuddered. “Next time you are going to be the one proposing. I am never going through that again!”




“Marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for an institution yet.” —Mae West





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