First-ever double update from me! Wow :)

In case you missed it, I have a new two-shot called In Plain Sight (next chapter is nearly finished).

Enjoy this short chapter, and thank you for reading.

Apparently, Harry now had a girlfriend. Did he have the decency to tell Molly?

No.

Mother and daughter were catching up on a weekend afternoon at The Burrow. Ron and Hermione were halfway into their trip around the world, which meant that Harry seemed to retreat from everyone else lately. Others thought he was busy with Teddy, but Molly knew better.

So it was a shock to hear Ginny—in between updates about her work at The Daily Prophet, including her hit article about the Aurors' heroic arrest of some "Death Eater wannabes"—casually mention that Harry had found the time to date.

Ginny merely laughed at her distress. "Mum, don't look like that. I mean, okay, I think it might be too early to call her his girlfriend—"

"Well, it's a bit disconcerting."

And it was a woman from Ginny's office no less! Someone who'd gone to school over in America. Elizabeth Smith. What an awfully plain name.

Ginny paused in the middle of washing dishes. She jerked her head to rid a stray strand of hair that was falling over her eyes. Her arms were deep into a sink of soapy water. She'd been living in the Muggle world for a few months now, for reasons unknown, and had adopted some of their strange habits. Hand-washing dishes was the second. Wearing jeans was the first.

Her daughter fixed her with a confused look. "Disconcerting? Harry having a girlfriend is disconcerting?"

She didn't know, Molly remembered. She didn't know the truth like she and Arthur. She glanced for her husband, for his help or his sympathy, but he'd retreated to his shed to fool around with Muggle toys.

"Well, it's just . . . it's been so long. He hasn't had a relationship with anyone since . . . you." Molly was saying whatever she could to save face. Inside, her thoughts were warring against each other. It felt ridiculous but she felt a tad affronted that Harry, having feelings for Hermione, could . . . betray her so easily! Or maybe betray was too strong of a word, but Molly couldn't think of another term for her feelings.

Did Hermione know? She knew from a recent fireplace call with Harry that he and Hermione spoke nearly on a daily basis.

Ginny stared one second longer before returning to her dishes. "I think it's time for him to find someone. It's so easy to get lonely at our age." She gestured for her mother to hand over another dirty dish. Molly magicked it away with her wand, causing the younger woman to roll her eyes. She retracted her arms, letting the sink manually drain.

A few minutes of silence passed, and Molly spent them watching her daughter's profile. Ginny was now eating a cookie while reading a spread of The Quibbler, run by her friend Luna Lovegood. They were still close, despite the papers' old rivalry with one another. Yes, her daughter, Ginerva Molly Weasley, was a beautiful woman, more beautiful than Molly had been when she was younger—though Arthur protested this observation. But she was not only that, of course: She was smart and independent and fearless. She lived life on her own terms now. Of course, when Molly thought more about it, hadn't her daughter always been that way? She suppressed the urge to gather Ginny in her arms.

She was further jolted back to reality when Ginny said to her: "If you are wondering, Mother, I'm over him." The younger woman was currently wiping away cookie crumbs from the paper.

Molly knew her surprise had shown. "I'd thought that, but I wasn't sure. We've never quite . . . spoken about it."

Her daughter nodded in agreement and turned so her back was against the counter's edge. "Sorry. I don't think I was ready then. I wasn't quite emotional about it; I thought I'd be angrier. But I still needed time to process it. Then, by the time I was perfectly fine, it didn't seem worth it to bring our relationship back up."

"It was mutual then."

"Yes."

Molly knew she was pushing it, but she was so curious. "And the reasons?"

Ginny shrugged as if she was just asked where she wanted to eat. "Work was busy. We'd run out of things to talk about. We weren't comfortable around each other any more. And the last bit was the killer—my suspicions were correct about Harry and his feelings—" Ginny said the last bit humorously, until she stopped herself, her eyes widening. Then she busied herself with wiping the nearest counter clean. Again, so Muggle.

At the same time, her episode reminded Molly, suspiciously, of her own half-said sentences lately, her accidental slips-of-the-tongue—usually when they had to deal with Harry's feelings for—

Now Molly's own eyes widened.

She knew. Ginny knew as well.

Before Molly could comment or further question her youngest child, Harry and Teddy arrived at the kitchen door.