The Request by redhead414

Chapter 28

Harry came home the next morning, grateful for the stash of pepper-up potion Teddy kept in his bathroom cabinet. He assumed Teddy's wild streak came from Tonks, because Remus always seemed to be the more sensible of the two. Then again, Remus was one of the original marauders, so maybe he got it from both of them. Stifling a yawn with his hand, Harry came in through the backdoor, finding his wife in the kitchen with red-rimmed eyes, making breakfast.

"You didn't come home last night," she said to him, her voice wavering ever so slightly.

"Nice to see you noticed," was Harry's short reply. He tossed his jacket on the back of a kitchen chair and braced his hands on top of it, staring at her. "What's got you all out of sorts now?"

Ginny sniffled. "You didn't come home last night."

"You already said that."

She spun around on her heel, spatula in her hand. "So what, now you're going to punish me when I don't agree with you by not sleeping here?"

Harry stared at his wife, sympathetic to the fact she was upset but his heels were dug in deep regarding her recent attitude. "When I left last night with the boys, we went to grab a drink. James left after two to go back home to check on his wife," he said with emphasis, "while Teddy and I went back to his place, where I wound up passing out on the couch." He let go of the back of the chair, shoving his hands into his pockets as he stared at his wife. "You know, Teddy said something last night that I hadn't really thought of until…well, until he said it."

"Which was?"

"Teddy said he wasn't so much mad at you because you insulted Anya and your son by insinuating that she has some sort of mind control over him," Harry said. "Last night, he said to me that he didn't understand how you could insult Hermione's place in Anya's life, how you could insinuate that Hermione wasn't any more of a mother to Anya than you are to him."

Ginny's jaw dropped slightly as she went to speak a few times, her voice squeaking before she found her words. "That's hardly the same, Harry!" she finally exclaimed. "I've been in that boy's life since he was born! He's lived with you since the war ended -"

"But you were in school that final year," Harry countered. "You didn't move in with us until he was at least one and a half, almost two."

"He has always called me 'Mum.' Always," Ginny fiercely whispered.

"And Hermione has always been there for Malfoy's kids. She didn't just show up one day out of the blue and become his girlfriend!"

Ginny spun back on her heel and went back to the bacon she was frying in the pan and the eggs in the skillet. "Those two completely took it upon themselves to make an adult decision by themselves, without including us, and while they were telling us and rationalizing their completely irrational arguments, Hermione just sat there! She didn't even look mad! And you - you bloody knew this entire time and said nothing!" She summoned two dishes from the cabinet and rapidly placed the eggs and bacon on the plate, nearly missing one entirely, before they floated over to the kitchen table. She snatched silverware from the drawer, slamming it shut an all but throwing the forks onto the table as she hastily sat down. Harry was still standing, watching as she stabbed a few pieces of eggs and shoved them into her mouth. "I didn't poison it," she spat, motioning for him to sit.

Harry took a seat at the table and picked up his fork, taking a bite of his eggs. "Look. Right after my very first meeting with the British Prime Minister, one of his staffers mentioned to one of mine that he saw a James Potter and an Anya Malfoy in the paper under the marriage certificate publications, which is something they do in Muggle papers, and when the staffer relayed it to me, I laughed at him and said that was impossible. That I would know if my son was married."