This was based off another request from an anonymous tumblr-er-er-er. I would've posted it it yesterday, but ffnet was acting up and wouldn't let me long on. So, somewhat belatedly, here it is! Oh and: no Cursed Child spoilers here, if you're trying to avoid them :)

"Anyway," Harry said, picking up the conversation from where they'd left it a moment ago when they'd disapparated from the Ministry, "all I'm saying is, if we knew where the Selwyns were supposed to have hidden the cursed amulet, we could—"

"Nope!" Ron said, throwing up his hands. "No more work. Shush. Enough. Be quiet."

"It's alright, no one here will—"

"It's not secrecy I'm worried about," Ron explained, opening the garden gate, "we'd be fine here. But we've literally just finished work for the weekend, it's Friday night, and, more than that, it's party time. After all the stick we got from Robards today, I am not going to talk about this case any bloody more, okay?"

Harry laughed, taking his point. "I don't know how much excitement you're hoping for at a children's party, but okay." Both of them looked ahead to Andromeda's garden, which was filled with about twenty small children shrieking with glee, and their slightly harassed-looking parents.

"Are you kidding?" Ron cried. "There's a bouncy castle! This is going to be better than any of the parties we go to normally. Oh, look, there's Hermione!" he said, brightening still further and running a hand through his hair. "Hello, love!"

Harry sufficed with giving her a wave, and left the two of them to it, especially after Ron greeted her with a kiss that probably wasn't entirely child-friendly. Before he could go any further in search of other company, however, he was accosted by a small cannonball flying into his side. "Uncle Harry!" cried Teddy. "You came!"

"Of course I came!" said Harry, ruffling his hair. "I wasn't going to miss my favourite Godson's birthday, was I?"

Teddy giggled, then frowned. "Uncle Harry, am I your only Godson?"

"You are indeed," Harry confirmed.

"Oh," said Teddy, shoulders slumping. Then: "Uncle Harry, if I wasn't your only Godson, would I still be your favourite Godson?"

"Of course you would," he assured him. "Have you had a nice birthday?"

"I have had the most amazingest birthday in the history of the whole wide world!" Teddy said.

"That's what I like to hear," Harry said. "Hey, listen. Me and Auntie Ginny have got you a present, but she wanted to be there to give it to you, so it's hidden away at our house at the moment. We're going to give it to you when she gets back from the World Tour, okay?"

"When's that?" Teddy asked.

"Two weeks and three days," Harry said, only just stopping himself from adding, "and six hours and forty-three minutes."

"That's ages," sighed Teddy. Harry was surprised. Teddy wasn't really a whiney child; he couldn't imagine him demanding his presents now, like Dudley would have.

"Well, it's not that long. She's been gone for more time than we've got left before she returns—three weeks and five days, to be precise—so we're over the halfway point now."

"Yes but it must feel like ages and ages and ages and ages and ages and ages to you," Teddy said, turning his head to the side. His hair flashed red, like Ginny's, then went back to turquoise.

"Well...yes, yes it does," Harry admitted.

"I only have to wait to get my present," he said, "you have to wait for her to get back. It must be rubbish."

"It's not all that bad," he said. "I'm very proud of her going out there and playing so well. She's all over the papers, she's so good! And she is very happy to be doing the tour, so that's good, isn't it?" Teddy frowned slightly. "But yes. I do miss her. A lot."

Teddy nodded thoughtfully. "I heard Gran talking to Granny Molly in the kitchen earlier," he confessed. "Gran said that she had seen about Ginny in the newspaper and Granny Molly must be pleased and Granny Molly said that she was except that it was rubbish that Ginny was gone for so long because it meant that you were moping around the place like a wet weekend all the time."

"A wet—I'm not—" Harry spluttered.

"Anyway d'you want to go on the bouncy castle with me?" he asked, conversation changing quicker than his hair.

"I'm not really sure grownups are allowed on there," he said dubiously.

Teddy looked at him. "Auntie Ginny would go on the bouncy castle with me."

"...you're not wrong. Okay. Let's go!" Very occasionally, as a child, Harry had been to places with muggle bouncy castles—the school fete, and one or two birthday parties where the parents had been foolish enough to invite Harry as well as Dudley—and although they had always seemed fun at the time, they were nothing compared to the one Andromeda had rented for Ted's party. It looked like Hogwarts in miniature, and magic meant that the kids could bounce far, far higher than they would normally have been able to—they looked rather like the grainy footage he'd seen one time of astronauts leaping about on the moon. So it was great fun to just jump up and down for a few minutes with Teddy and some of the other children Andromeda had invited; the experience allowed him to forget about missing Ginny for about thirty seconds, which was thirty seconds longer than he'd managed over the last three weeks and five days.

Unless time spent asleep counted.

Which it probably didn't.

"Hey, look, it's Victoire!" Harry said, dropping down onto his knees and bouncing over to the edge of the castle, where Fleur was trying to persuade a rather timid-looking Victoire to climb aboard. "Hey, Vic. Aren't you going to come and play?"

"See? Uncle 'Arry will 'elp you up," Fleur said encouragingly, but Victoire shook her head, clinging tighter to her mother.

"It's okay, Vic, really," Harry said gently, holding out his hands towards her.

"Victoire's a chicken!" cried Teddy, bouncing past.

Victoire scowled. "Am not!"

"Are too!" he shouted back, bouncing past again in the opposite direction.

"Am not!" Victoire said, stomping her foot.

"Why don't you go with Uncle 'Arry and 'e will—" Fleur was cut off by Teddy bouncing past a third time making bwak bwak bwak noises. At this, Victoire screwed up her face in determination and heaved herself on to the bouncy castle, giving a tiny, hesitant bounce, then a slightly larger one. Ted's face split into the widest grin Harry had seen on it all day, and he grabbed her hand, the two of them bouncing around together, shrieking with glee.

Fleur and Harry exchanged matching grins as he climbed off. On straightening up, he gave a mock-double take on seeing her six-months-pregnant stomach. "Merlin's pants, you appear to have one of the balloons stuffed up your shirt! Or did you just eat all the birthday cake when the kids weren't looking?"

Fleur gave him the kind of death glare that, had it been employed by Lord Voldemort, would have finished him off years ago. "Don't mind my wife," Bill said cheerfully, walking up to them and slinging an arm around his wife's shoulders. He and Harry nodded at each other. "She has had her sense of humour removed to make room for all the hormones. Good to see you, by the way."

Now positively purple in the face—but still somehow beautiful—Fleur said something that Harry assumed was French for "I am going to remove your toenails, or possibly your testicles, or possibly both". Ever attuned to danger, thanks to several years of work in the Auror Office, he took a surreptitious step backwards, but Bill merely grinned wolfishly and leaned down to whisper something in her ear, whereupon Fleur all but melted into his side and practically purred. Bill's grin widened, and Harry decided it was probably time to make himself scarce. Rather glumly, he made his way across the garden to Hermione and Ron, who were sitting together on a plastic chair, sharing a ham sandwich that was cut into the shape of a dragon.

"Teddy is a big fan of dragons," Hermione said, by way of explanation, flushing ever so slightly pink. "Ron!" she added, as he bit its head off. Ron merely squeezed her tighter, and she made a feeble attempt at protest.

"S'alright," he said cheerfully. "No children around to traumatise with my amazing dragon decapitation skills."

"No, just your hands-all-over-each-other skills," Harry grumbled, pulling up a chair next to them. He was getting rather sick of the sight of couples everywhere. "You know there are plenty of other, empty chairs, right? You don't need to sit on top of each other."

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Don't mind Harry, dear," Ron said to her. "He's just sulking because he misses a Certain Someone."

"Ohhh," said Hermione, in a voice that was far too understanding for Harry's liking.

"I am not!" he said, helping himself to an uneaten dragon sandwich.

"He is too," Ron said, once Harry had stuffed half the sandwich in his mouth and could only give a muffled grunt of indignation in response. "It's either sulking, or was trying to distract himself by burying himself in work. 'Oh, golly, Ron, have you read this forty-five volume report on the Selwyn case? I cannot wait to get stuck in to it! What super bedtime reading this is going to be! I've bought new highlighters specially for it!'. Honestly, it's like sharing an office with Percy."

"Speaking of..." Hermione said, nodding to something over both of their shoulders. Harry and Ron turned to see that Percy had just appeared, a pretty brunette woman on his arm.

"So that's the mysterious Audrey," Ron said. As they watched, she stood up on tiptoe and pecked Percy on the cheek, causing him to flush bright red. Hermione aww'ed, Ron smirked, and Harry just felt even more peevish. Apparently, no one at this party could go thirty seconds without unnecessary displays of affection. Not one of them were showing him any courtesy and keeping their romance to themselves. They could all go back to their own homes and be as loving as they wanted with each other, but what was he, Harry, going back to? Kreacher, that was what.

He missed Ginny.

Hermione and Ron were now feeding each other bits of sandwich, so he took this as his cue to leave. "I'm going to find Andromeda; I haven't said hello to her yet," he said, hastily standing up. They waved him off half-heartedly, but their minds were clearly on other things. On the way indoors (a journey that took about thirty seconds to complete), he passed various parents of the children Andromeda had invited—one couple were holding hands, another sitting down together, feet linked, and a third were leaning against each other companionably, watching their child.

It was all very sickening. He wished Ginny was there to make fun of them with him.

"Oh, hello Harry dear." On a bench near the back door were Mr and Mrs Weasley, so he took a quick detour to say hello.

"How are you doing, son?" asked Arthur.

"I'm all good," he said. "Yourselves?"

"Oh, we're fine," smiled Molly. "Now, dear, I wanted to ask—with Ginny gone, are you getting enough to eat? Because I always worry that—"

Harry refrained from pointing out that he did most of the cooking anyway, and assured Mrs Weasley that he wasn't starving just because Ginny had left the country. "Really? Because you're looking a little peaky, and—"

"Here, Harry, have you seen this?" Arthur said, catching Harry's eye in a knowing way. He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a page from the newspaper, smoothing it out carefully. Harry knew what it would be straight away: he'd taken to carrying his own copy around with him (but thought that this might not be a good thing to share with Ginny's father). A few days ago, after the Harpies had scored a record 380—20 win over an Australian team, the Prophet had run an almost full page photo on the front page of Ginny celebrating her twenty-fifth goal of the match. It was a glorious shot: her arms were thrown up in celebration, her hair was streaming out behind her and her face was lit by a huge smile. Golden Girl Ginny Grabs Goal After Goal, said the headline. Harry was contemplating framing it and hanging it in his work cubicle.

"It's a great picture, isn't it?" he asked.

"That's my girl, that is," Arthur said, his voice brimming with pride.

"We were just saying," Molly added fondly, "it doesn't seem five minutes since she was running around at parties like this, and now look at her!"

"We should have another," Arthur suggested, winking at his wife.

"Oh, get away with you," Molly said, giggling. Harry decided that this was a good time to leave. Again.

"Hi, Andromeda," he said, finding her in the kitchen.

Her face broke into a warm smile. "Hello dear," she said. "How are you? Missing that lovely young lady of yours, I should think."

He pulled a face. "Right in one," he said dolefully. "But hey—Ted seems to be having an amazing time. The bouncy castle is a huge hit."

"I have done one or two children's parties before, you know," she said, with a small smile.

"Teddy appreciates it," Harry said, walking over and giving her a one-armed hug. "You're doing a great job."

"I try," she said simply, shrugging. "And it's in no small part thanks to you and Ginny that he's doing so well."

"Rubbish," Harry said firmly. "You're the one doing all the hard graft. We just get to do the fun bits."

"Oh, I'd say this was pretty fun," she replied, gesturing out of the kitchen window to the garden, where all the children were playing. "Have you seen Teddy, by the way? Dropped any hints about the bee-arh-oh-oh-em you've got him for his birthday?"

"Not at all!" he said. "The only thing I said was that Ginny wanted to be there when we give him his present, so he'd have to wait until she got back from the world tour. I think he might be the only person in the world more excited for that to be over than me."

Andromeda laughed. "You don't mean that."

"No, of course not," he said quickly. "It's so great—I'm so proud of her, and so excited, too. Unofficially, it's sort of an audition for the England squad for the World Cup next year and...yeah! Very exciting. It's just so great, I'm so happy for her."

"But you miss her," Andromeda said, having listened to all this.

"So much," he sighed. Andromeda ruffled his hair affectionately. "Anyway!" he said. "Anything I can do to help here?"

"Well, I was thinking it's about time we did the birthday cake," she replied. "I've hidden it in the dining room to avoid any mishaps—if you could go and fetch it, I'll put the word out that we're about ready for it?"

"Sounds like a plan," Harry replied, giving her a salute. In the dining room, he saw the cake—dragon shaped, courtesy of Molly Weasley—sitting in pride of place on the dining room table. Overlooking it was a picture of Remus and Tonks at Bill and Fleur's wedding; he couldn't help picking it up and staring at the two of them. They looked ridiculously happy, both pressed up against each other, laughing and sneaking kisses every few seconds. It was almost ridiculous how in love they seemed, and it made his heart hurt to look at them. He spent quite a few moments just staring at it then, eventually, replaced it on the mantelpiece and began carefully levitating the cake into the kitchen.

Rounding the corner, he saw that now, Andromeda wasn't alone in there—Kingsley Shacklebolt had joined her. This surprised Harry: he knew that he and Tonks had worked together in the Aurors and the Order, but he hadn't exactly thought that they were closed, so he wondered why the Minister of Magic had come to her son's birthday party. Kinglsey had clearly said something that had embarrassed Andromeda, because she flushed, then swatted at him, and he responded by taking her hand and kissing it slowly.

Somehow, this gestured seemed more intimate to Harry than any other couple behaviour he'd seen that afternoon, and he found himself loudly clearing his throat before entering the room. "Oh, hi Kingsley!" he said, faux-surprised, and the two of them sprang apart, both blushing slightly. "I've got the cake here," he added, somewhat unnecessarily, as the dragon-cake had just belched fire.

"Oh, lovely, just put it, yes, down there, that's lovely. Yes. Lovely," Andromeda said, brushing a hand through her hair. "I'll just..." She flapped her hands, clearly still flustered, and Harry tried not to look as though he was filing the information away too much.

Kingsley and Andromeda? Surely not. He wouldn't have believed it—except for the fact that the evidence was right there in front of him. Ginny, though—she would know. She would explain it to him. He could tell her, run through the entire thing, and she would nod and say that she had suspected for months, now. He wished she was here, right now, so he could tell her.

Fortunately—or not—he was distracted by helping Andromeda to call over the children to sing Ted the birthday song. This was surprisingly easy: all the parents helped, and Molly and Andromeda proved very adept at lighting the cake, levitating it out to Teddy and ensuring there were plenty of plates handy so that everyone could have a slice.

"Don't forget to make a wish!" called Arthur, and then they all started to sing. Harry spotted Ron doing a silly dance to make the children nearest him laugh; Fleur nestled against Bill's shoulder, stroking Victoire's hair and Percy and Audrey—of all people!—making out against a wall, oblivious to the celebration in front of them. Stifling a giggle—and wishing he could catch Ginny's eye at their display—he turned his attention to Teddy, who was glowing with pride as everyone sang to him.

"Happy biiiiirthday dear Ted-dy, happy biiirthday to youuu!" As he leaned forward to blow out the candles, Harry's eyes slipped towards Andromeda, and he watched her fingers inch their way towards Kingsley's. By the time the last candle had been extinguished, the two of them were linked by their pinkie fingers, and Harry gaped, thinking that—

"Oh, no," said a small voice. "I've missed it!"

He whirled around.

"Ginny!"

But it wasn't him who had shouted; although he raced across the garden to her side, he was beaten there by Teddy.

"Auntie Ginny, you're here, you're here! My wish came true!" The little boy barrelled into her side, then was sandwiched there by Harry as he leaned over the top of his small body and kissed her full on the lips, headless of whoever else was there to witness it.

"Oh!" she gasped, as Harry broke away, and he became aware that various people were clapping, and a camera flashed.

"Say cheese!" said Ron, snapping another photo, and Harry laughed as Ginny stuck out her tongue and Teddy's hair flashed between black and Weasley-red.

"What are you doing here?" he asked after a moment, arms firmly wrapped around her waist.

Ginny grinned. "Couldn't miss my favourite man's birthday, could I, Ted?"

"I wished her here, Uncle Harry!" cried Teddy. "They said to make a wish when I blew outta candles onna cake, and I wished that Auntie Ginny was here! And she appeared! I am magical!"

"You're something, kid," Harry laughed, sneaking another kiss with Ginny.

"Hey, Teddy, come and help me cut this cake!" called Andromeda, tipping Harry a wink. Teddy squeezed Ginny one last time, then shot off towards his grandmother, and Harry took the opportunity to lead Ginny down to the bottom of the garden so that they were hidden behind the bouncy castle, ignoring Ron and Bill's wolf-whistles.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked her. Walking was hard: they were so close together, but neither wanted to move away even though their legs and feet kept almost getting tangled.

"If it's such a problem, I can leave again," Ginny said, tossing her hair, and Harry pouted, sitting down on the grass behind the castle and pulling her onto his lap.

"Don't you dare," he growled, and she laughed, kissing his forehead, his nose, his cheeks. "I want you here forever."

"We should be so lucky," she said, squirming closer to him as he ran his hands up and down her back and arms. "I have a Portkey back to Adelaide that leaves the Ministry at six-sixteen tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow—you're here all night?"

"I certainly am," she said, smirking. "Problem?"

"Yes," he said firmly. "Not long enough. I want six weeks alone with you, starting right now."

She hummed with pleasure between kisses.

"Seriously," he asked, tearing himself away from her after a moment, "how did you get here?"

"We have three days off between matches, so we've been granted twenty-four hours furlough," she explained. "Most of the rest of the team are spending it out in Sydney, hitting the bars. I, idiot that I am, decided to take fifteen Portkeys across twelve countries to see you, because I missed you so much. I owled Hermione so she could help me co-ordinate my timezones and Percy, so he could pull a few strings in International Magical Transportation. Ron distracted you with work so you wouldn't suspect—basically everyone helped out. They're great. I mean," she pulled away, and looked at him seriously. "I couldn't miss Ted's birthday party, could I? I had to make it back for that."

"Just for that?" asked Harry.

"Sure," she replied. "Love a good bouncy castle, me."

"You sound like Ron."

"You know, I can go straight back to—"

"Don't you dare."

"I love it when you get possessive," she said, and he laughed, pulling her even closer and kissing her again.

"Harry..."

"Mmm?"

"Wanna go back home?"

"Oh, yes," he said with feeling, but pulled her back as she started to slide off his lap.

"We have to say goodbye to people," she laughed. "Or at least 'hello'. I've crossed continents and hemispheres and if I don't at least say hi to my mother, she'll never let me forget it. Come on. Thirty seconds of greetings and then..." She whispered something in his ear that made his face turn pink. She laughed, scrambling to her feet then pulling him up too.

When she was standing, Harry finally registered what she was wearing. "An England jersey?!"

"Ssh," she said, winking. "It's a secret."

"Are you—does that mean—"

"Well, after my performance the other day—twenty-five goals in one match isn't quite a world record, but it is a record for a Harpy, and we're pretty good—they basically had no choice," she said smugly. "You are looking at England's newest Chaser—oh!" Ginny gasped in surprise as he pulled her into him again, kissing her hard and wrapping his arms around her.

He probably wouldn't have stopped kissing her, children's party or no, if he hadn't become aware of a small tap on his elbow. He broke away. "Hey, what d'you—" Ginny started to protest, then, vision clearing, smiled down at Teddy, smoothing her jersey as she did so. "Hello, Teddy," she said, "happy birthday! How are you today?"

She sounded much more put together than Harry felt; he was barely able to string together a sentence. It wasn't right at all.

"I am very good thank you," Teddy said seriously. "Do you know what?"

"I do not know what," Ginny said gravely, bending down. "Are you going to tell me?"

"I am," he said. "Did you know that when I blowed out the candles on my cake I made a wish? And do you know what that wish was?"

"No, no!" Ginny said, throwing her hands up over her ears. "If you tell me, it won't come true!"

"It's okay," Teddy assured her. "It's already true! I wished that you could get here, so that Uncle Harry would be cheered up!"

"Well, I think the power of your wishing worked," said Ginny. "Because here I am! Wait a minute—to cheer up Uncle Harry? Was he miserable?"

Harry deliberately looked away.

"He looked," Teddy said gravely, "like a wet weekend."

"Oh, dear," said Ginny, her own lips twitching.

"But it doesn't matter, 'cause you're here now!" he said.

"I am indeed," she agreed. "And Uncle Harry and I were just thinking that we might slip off—"

"Auntie Ginny? You know how I wished you to be here and it worked?" Ginny nodded. "Do you think I could have a reward for being so clever?"

She looked over at Harry, and they exchanged glances, Harry giving her the tiniest of nods. "I don't see why not," she smiled. "What reward would you like?"

"Can I come back to your house with you right now and have my present, please?"