• 1-Hidden Agenda
• 2-I Couldn't Press Charges Even If I Wanted To
• 3-Taking Charge
• 4-Come To Light
• 5-Knee Jerk Reactions

Harry had one hell of a hangover when Arthur came to wake him the next morning. Or he was still drunk. It was even odds. The clock may have said You're Late but his brain said What's that spell to turn me into ooze so I can dribble out a nostril?

Arthur would sadly not be dissuaded-or convinced to cast the brain dribble spell-and so Harry found himself spelled clean with his dress robes pulled over his head and the pajama pants he was wearing. They were old dress robes, ones he'd worn to a Ministry function two years earlier. Sadly they still fit, though they were wrinkled from being balled up in the bottom of his wardrobe since graduation. If he remembered correctly (and he was trying very hard not to for more than one reason) they'd been used to clean up bird shit when a potential supplier used a pigeon as a carrier bird a few days earlier. He was pretty sure there were personal grooming steps he was skipping (like bathe, brush teeth, brush hair, put on deodorant) but Arthur ignored his mumbled protests and dragged him into the fireplace.

Hangovers, Harry discovered, made Floo travel much more exciting than traveling sober; it was the hard landing and projectile vomit that killed you. The people around you (most of whom were hit with said vomit) were not overly pleased, but then again they didn't get the cool roller coaster without safety precautions feeling first. That may have been the part of him that was still drunk talking. Since he rather suspected that he'd be spending a great deal of his time in this state of combined drunk and hungover Harry decided the feeling needed a name. He pondered this seriously while Arthur took his wand and gave it back (Harry wasn't quite sure where it had come from), and then dragged him into a shiny room. Trying desperately not to look directly at the walls (and to ignore the fact that the room seemed to be falling at an alarming pace) Harry decided that finding a name was too much work and named the feeling drunk-over.

It wasn't until one wall moved and he realized there was a paper airplane stuck in his hair that he realized he was at the Ministry. He was pretty sure it was rather unsporting of Arthur to make him marry Ginny two weeks early while he was drunk-over (although he was pretty sure he would have been drunk-over then, too) but he had no choice. He'd promised.

Damn he needed a drink. Where was his firewhiskey? Oh, yeah...it was at his apartment. Where was he again? Paper airplanes made dizzying patterns along the ceiling...he was at the Ministry then. That's right, he was drunk-over and Arthur was making him marry Ginny early. Bastard.

**

Arthur Weasley was pretty sure this wasn't supposed to be so funny. He was enacting a very old law that no one used anymore; he was selling his daughter into slavery in order to pay for the damage she'd caused the Family Name. That was a very sad and somber affair. Harry Potter not realizing he was speaking a stream of consciousness? That was the height of entertainment. Not once in decades of drinking had Arthur ever come up with 'drunk-over', nor was he too terribly familiar with the feeling-he had to admit that it looked like it could be fun if one overlooked the vomiting. Harry's enjoyment of the Floo, and his serious explanation of the sensation to the five Auror's upon which he'd vomited had been priceless. Their faces (especially once they realized who he was) were enough to cause laughter from the surrounding crowd. Harry's musings on the memos were amusing.

Harry calling him a bastard for making Harry marry Ginny hurt.

Arthur knew that Harry was inebriated and that the teen had nothing to do with things being as they were-Harry was very much the victim here-but Harry had always looked up to Arthur even more so than his own children. Then a boy, he'd modeled himself after Arthur as much as possible. Arthur had been his hero. It hurt to realize that, in this moment at least, that was no longer the case. Arthur had turned from hero to villain because of his daughter; if this was true for a person who'd always loved him, Arthur mused, it must be doubly true to those with no personal attachment to him whatsoever.

**

Arthur was much less amused when he Flooed Harry back to the Burrow. Thankfully he'd managed to hit the kitchen so he could get Harry to the sink before the vomiting started, but Harry seemed to be enjoying it much less this time. Molly hovered nearby and Arthur handed her the parchment he held tight as he helped the teen recover his stomach. Her whispered question seemed loud in the deserted room.

"Why?"

"Because I wouldn't have been able to live with myself otherwise."

He looked up to see tears in his wife's eyes but she nodded; whether it was agreement or understanding he wasn't sure. He didn't think that it mattered because in the end the matter was officially closed. The Witch Ginevra was now chattel of the Family Potter because of undisclosed crimes against the Head. It was a distasteful solution but the only one he could live with. Questioning the night before had assured him that Harry would marry his daughter because, as he put it, 'she's Georgie's sister and I can't be the reason Georgie's sister goes to Azkaban'.

There was no way Ginny Weasley was going to break apart a love that inspired such selflessness.

Author's Note: Yes, it's short, but I claim exhaustion. I am also using that as the excuse for the entire contents of this chapter...