After All, Harry

the pot-weasle-pin cottage

Training days were the worst thing ever created on Earth by a human who Ginny personally thought would rot deep the the crevices of the fiery underworld.

Gwenog Jones, their ambitious and slightly crazy captain would make her team run laps across the huge field they practice on—with magical weights that would not only weigh you down but float you up by your ankles if you stopped before the laps were up. They would have to throw quaffle after quaffle into the rings until their arms would shake and Ginny felt as though she'd throw up from the amount of dives and spins that they'd run and rerun.

Adding onto this, it was at the asscrack of dawn and even Harry wasn't fully awake when Ginny left. Considering Harry always woke up early enough to shower, change and start preparing breakfast before Ginny even opened her eyes—this was too early. When she left, Teddy was sleeping soundly in his little crib in her room, and Harry was still snoring with the covers sprawled around him, his wand right next to his pillow. He did wake up for a goodbye though, making sure he always said "I love you," even if it sounded mushed. He learned that the hard way a couple months back.

After the first two hours of the training, Harry came to drop Teddy off so that Harry could accompany Andromeda to her healer's consultation. He waved, dropped Teddy off on a bleacher closest to the ground in an enchanted baby carrier. So while Ginny was having her ankles fly in the air with sweat dripping down her hairline, Teddy was sitting in the stands clapping his hands and giggling as he watched. The entire team was completely enamored by him, and his ever changing hair and big toddler eyes didn't help. Only Gwenog was bothered by what she called a "distraction in disguise".

"Ginny! Ginny!" He chanted over and over again, his hair rapidly changing colors as his excitement increased, ranging from bright pink to turquoise and orange and green. He was getting more and more verbal, though when he said Ginny, it sounded more like Eeny, his G's not quite perfect yet.

Ginny swore up and down and to the skies that her eyes never left him for more than a minute until the very end of the four hour training day. And even when it ended, she stayed with Teddy for another ten minutes. Save for when she asked Lidia Valdez, the keeper, to keep an eye on him while she changed.

Just as she was retying her hair into a bun after the wind had its run with it, she walked back onto the pitch. Thanking other players and saying goodbye and shaking hands, Ginny was feeling pretty good. Beat to the bone, but pretty good. That all changed when she looked again to the bleachers and felt her heart drop to her feet when she saw that Teddy was not on the pitch. Nor was he on the stands, in the shed, or even in the locker rooms.

Ginny was in a state of complete panic—she tried to ignore the tears welled up in her eyes as she dissapparated across the field in a matter of thirty seconds searching. She ignored Lidia's yelling after her, something about her mother. She didn't stay long enough to hear what Lidia was really saying. Giving this up, she spun again and left with a loud crack!

She landed on warm and dewy earth and ran into the Burrow, Ginnys eyes wet and frantic.

"Teddy?!"

She was yelling around the house, not really thinking straight, nor pausing to think rationally and remember the last conversation she had with her mother. The very conversation that stated that at 7:30 am, which is when her training ended, Mrs. Weasley would be picking up Teddy to take care of him and Victoire for the day, as a little play date.

Once she made it to the kitchen, Ginny was in a right state—her hair was a mess, strands poking loosely around her sweaty face, eyes red and lips redder from biting them. Her after practice outfit was an old Holyhead Harpies t-shirt from last season and letterman sweatpants from Hogwarts, wearing this with her broom over her shoulder and a very large dufflebag that was most likely heavier than Ginny.