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Category: Alternate Universe Characters:Harry/Ginny, Other Genres: Angst, Drama, Romance Warnings: Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Negative Alcohol Use Story is Complete Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 713 Summary: Can love survive, no matter what someone does to destroy it? Hitcount: Story Total: 154220; Chapter Total: 7123 Awards: View Trophy Room |
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Author’s Notes: This is maybe the one and only chapter that I'll preface with a warning: I know exactly what I’m doing. Don’t panic. I offer great thanks to my betas, all of whom put just as much work into correcting my pathetic grammar as I do with plot. Happy reading, and please feel free to drop me a line. Enjoy! The Twin Trumpets of Victory and Defeat Someone help me!!! Ginny screamed at the top of her lungs. Please! I need help! Can’t anyone hear me?! No one answered and she had known they wouldn’t. It had to have been days, maybe even weeks or months, and no one had saved her yet. Maybe she was just in a place beyond saving. All Ginny knew for certain was that she trapped somewhere. Lying completely prone on her back, she struggled to move as she slipped in and out of dreamless sleep, with no way to measure the time between awareness and darkness. Her arms, her legs, her fingers, her lips; none of them, no part of her would budge an inch. The numbness felt strange. There was a deep soreness hiding behind it, ready to pounce when the opportunity struck, and though she was unable to lift her limbs, she could tell they weren’t bound by anything. Whatever potions she had been forcibly given or spells had been placed upon her were the only ropes holding her down. Even her mind was affected. She had no earthly idea where she was or how she had gotten there. Anytime she tried to remember, the exhaustion took over before she made any headway and blackness set in again. Not that she knew what she was even looking for. The most her mind would allow her were hazy bits and pieces: Christmas wreaths; a few notes of a song; flashbulbs blinding her; brilliant, warm emerald. None of it made any sense. The only thing she could do was to try to find a way to escape, from the confines of her body and whatever prison was holding her. Something was wrong, that much was clear. Something had been done to her. A part of her was missing, and she needed to find it. Even if she had no idea what it was. Occasionally, the black she was swimming in faded to a dark gray. That was when she could hear the faint voices for a short time. She shouted as loud as she could and still they didn’t help. They only kept talking as if she wasn’t there. She was unable to connect much of what they were saying to what was going on around her and within her: “She’s just so still. My daughter is not supposed to be like this...” “The press is having an absolute field day. They’re camped down in the lobby, trying to get a picture. Vicious mongrels, too. Robards even had to assign a pair of Aurors to stand guard outside the nurse…” “Mum, you should go lay down for a few hours. Fleur and I will stay with her. Don’t make us sic the good Healer Nixon on you …” “I think we’ll keep your daughter sedated for one more day. Our tests still indicate that there are traces of Thead in her system. Another round of spell treatment should clear it out. We don’t want to take any chances.” “Will she be…affected in any way?” “It’ll take a while for her strength to come back and there could be any number of aftereffects from the poisoning: impaired vision, muscle weakness, memory loss, temporary paralysis, kidney or liver failure. Or she could come through it all just fine. It’s all up to...” “Bart and I finally got him to take the Sleeping Draught. He made Bart promise to stay with the little one at all times to agree to it. It barely took a sip to knock him out, the lunatic. What was he thinking, staying awake for almost three days?” “Can you blame him? He left Ginny’s side for a couple of minutes and…and this happened.” “This wasn’t his fault, not in the least!” “Ron, we’ve known Harry since we were eleven. And something that you and I both know is that there probably isn’t anyone in the world that’ll convince him this wasn’t…” “He’s feeding like clockwork with the milk we’re extracting from Ginny and he’s gaining weight steadily. Reflexes are all where they need to be and he’s in remarkably good health. I’ve seen full-termers come into the world in worse condition. The only anomaly is, well…you know.” “What an amazing gift to have in the family. And so young! I spoke a little with Andromeda Tonks when she stopped by before and she said when Teddy was so small, he couldn’t shift with such…” “The healers lifted the enchantments off her hours ago. Why hasn’t she woken up yet?” “It takes time for the effects to fully wear off, even after normal anesthetizing spells, and Ginny’s body has been through an awful lot in the past two days. We need to give her a chance to recover before we start to worry.” “Ginny, luv, we’re all here. Come back to us now. Come back to your mother…” Mum, Ginny thought blindly. Finally, she recognized someone. Mum is here. Wasn’t she…wasn’t she traveling with Dad? Why is she here with me if I’ve been captured? Are we all in danger? Is the whole family…? The stress of it all was too much. She had to know what was going on. Even as the murky currents of the black water crushed back against her, Ginny forced herself to swim upward, where the voices where. “Did…Did she just move her hand?” A soft touch of warmth broke through the heavy numbness where Ginny knew her hand was. She curled her fingers slowly into a fist in response. “Ginny? Can you hear me? It’s Nell. Move your head if you can hear me.” Why didn’t Nell just ask her to try to fly without any hint of magic? That would have been easier. At least now Ginny knew the danger only existed in her mind if her dear friend and mother were both with her. The promise of safety provided the extra strength it took to lower her chin until her head lifted a centimeter off the pillow. “Excellent job!” Nell encouraged her happily. “Molly, why don’t you go down the hall and get him?” “But shouldn’t you…?” “Just tell the nurses she’s awake. They’ll give him to you.” “Of course, of course!” Her mother’s perfume tickled her nostrils as her mum leaned over to plant a long kiss on her forehead. “I love you so much. I’ll be right back, sweet girl, and I’ll only be gone a moment.” I love you, too, Ginny thought, struggling to raise her hand from the bed as a set of footsteps left the room. Stay. Don’t leave me. Pushing up again against the invisible water, more of her body began to free itself. She could shift her arms and legs around though doing so was quite painful. She could move her lips as well, but she couldn’t force any sound out of them. Her throat was bone dry. Only her eyes remained locked under the crippling weight of whatever spell she had been under. “Don’t try to move too much,” Nell advised. Her voice was becoming clearer to Ginny with every word she spoke. “You’re at St. Mungo’s and you’ve been unconscious for over two days. You’re going to be fine, though. At the ball the other night, you drank Gillywater laced with something called Thead. It’s a potion that mimics the effects of alcohol. Normally, it’s not dangerous, but it interacts violently with the hormones produced during pregnancy so…” Pregnancy? What does that have to do with-? Ginny eyes burst open, and her body shot up from the bed. Every muscle and bone inside her cried out in protest for her to lie back down. She ignored them as panic erased any trace of numbness and exhaustion. Nell took her arms gently to try to ease her back onto the mattress, but Ginny fought back as hard as she could, thrashing about and trying to swipe Nell’s face with her fingernails. Her eyes burned with tears she couldn’t produce and words she couldn’t say clogged in her throat. The missing part of herself…it had been her stomach. Her empty stomach where her son should be. “Ginny! Stop!” Nell ordered gently. “It’s alright! You need to calm down!” Two days without movement caught up to Ginny and she fell back to the bed against her will, shaking with fear as Nell hovered over her. Sleep threatened to pull her underneath the water again, but she fought to keep her head above the surface. She could not let herself drown. Not now, not until she found him. WHERE IS HE?! Her mind that had been an incomplete mass of questions now only had room for one. The most important thing in her life wasn’t with her for the first time in months and she wasn’t herself anymore. She had nothing, was nothing and never would be again until she knew where he was. “Ba…Ba…by,” Ginny finally rasped with wide eyes staring into the face of her healer. Nell opened her mouth to reply, but a sound from the doorway caught her attention and she glanced toward it. Without speaking, she looked back down at Ginny and smiled before cupping the trembling woman’s cheeks and turning them gently so Ginny could see her own mother with a teary smile on her face, walking into the room with a bundle of blue blankets in her arms. Nell propped Ginny up as gently as she could, putting a pillow underneath Ginny’s left arm for support as Molly approached the bed. There was no resistance on Ginny’s part. She was aware of nothing except the blankets and the tiny hand that stretched out of them. He’s…He’s here. My baby’s here. With that thought, a new kind of fear raced through her, but it was easy to ignore (as were the sharp twinges of pain radiating from various points in her body) in the face of such impossible joy. He was here. When Ginny was finally situated, the Weasley matriarch carefully lowered the squirming bundle into her daughter’s arms and placed a lingering kiss on Ginny’s forehead. “Ginevra Molly Weasley,” she mumbled into Ginny’s hairline before pulling back, “I would like you to meet your son.” Ginny studied the small creature in her arms wordlessly. His eyes were closed and his entire tiny face was scrunched up, like the fist that had escaped his swaddling. He felt light as a feather in her arms, not even weighing a full stone, and he looked so very peaceful. It was strange, looking at her baby for the first time. Ginny had been sure when she saw him that she would think he was the most beautiful thing in the entire world. What she hadn’t counted on was that she had lived her whole life without knowing what beauty really was. It was a living thing, in her arms right now, his pulse thrumming steadily through the thin layers of blanket surrounding him, and she could not believe she had ever used the word to describe anything that hadn’t been him. Unable to help herself, she reached out with her other hand to brush her fingertips lightly against his fist. Her breath caught as he slowly opened his eyes. They were brown, exactly like her mum’s and hers. As he studied her with the same intensity she studied him, the baby uncurled his fingers to wrap around Ginny’s. “Hi,” she breathed in wonder. The softest hint of a coo answered back, and she smiled brightly, utterly enraptured. The tears she hadn’t been able to unearth earlier found her now and streamed down her cheeks as she unabashedly fell in love. How had she ever understood what love was until her son was in front of her? Nothing compared to this feeling seizing control. Not seeing the potion turn blue or hearing his heartbeat or seeing him squirm and wiggle through the curtain of a spell. It did not come close to what her heart did when she moved her thumb over the flecks of his fingernails and his nose scrunched up. This was love and it was amazing. Brilliant. All-consuming. Shocking. Heavenly. Dizzying. Suffocating. Blinding. Absolutely terrifying and delightful and a host of other things Ginny didn’t have words for. No one had words for them because there was no word for love. It hadn’t been created yet just as she had never really fallen in love until this moment. The love she felt with her family had been with her since the day she was born, as a part of her as any limb; her friends had all slowly entrenched themselves in her life until they each had a tiny little niche of her soul carved out for them; even with Harry, the unyielding love for him had developed gradually over several years as she grew to know him as simply Harry and not the Boy Who Lived she had dreamed of as a girl. Right now, with her son staring up at her, the bottom dropped out of her world and she was thrust into a brand new one. A world where the baby she held ruled her wholly and truly, without opposition or defiance. Her loved ones from her old world came with her, seated alongside him, but never at risk of usurping his position in her heart. Her son was hers and she was his. All was right in this new world. “I love you,” she whispered softly to him. The three words had never meant as much as they did now. Even though she had to do it slowly, she inched her head closer to his so she could nuzzle her nose gently in the bright tufts of purple hair peeking out from under- Purple?! That’s not… “It’s alright, luv.” Ginny startled at the sound of her mother’s voice. She had forgotten that she and the baby weren’t alone in the room. Immediately, whimpers escaped the baby’s lips and his eyes widened in fright. The look stabbed straight to her heart and Ginny wanted to cry along with him. That’s NOT right! He shouldn’t be in pain, she thought as she instinctively rocked him in her arms, pulling him closer. His head nestled against her chest and he began to relax, his cries fading before they had really begun. “He’s not ill in any way,” Nell chimed in. “His hair is just purple because that’s how he wanted it to look, I suppose.” “I…I don’t understand,” Ginny whispered, wincing at the coarseness of her voice. She extracted her finger from her son’s tight grasp to brush it along the feathery locks of purple hair on his head. “Why is he…?” “Simple, really: He’s a Metamorphmagus and a rare one at that.” “What do you mean?” “He’s what we call an Alpha Metamorphmagus, or an Almet for short. He was born with his sense of sight and hearing much more developed than most newborns. The sight, obviously, helps him recognize shapes and colors more quickly, and the hearing allows him to be more alert and recognize people’s voices more easily. I don’t know why I didn’t think to test for it when you told me some of the things he’d do in reaction to stimuli. I suppose because the trait is so rare. There’s maybe one Metamorphmagus born in every million magical births and only one Almet born in every thousand or so of those births. He’s a very special boy.” “Yes, he is,” Ginny agreed, though not necessarily for the reason Nell thought he was. The baby’s eyes narrowed a little and slowly, his hair started changing from purple to dark red. “Quite lucky as well,” Molly said, reaching out to her grandson’s hand. “You both were.” “What…What happened exactly?” Ginny asked. Why did she suddenly feel so jealous that her mother got to touch the baby as well? “I don’t remember anything.” “You drank Gillywater that had Thead in it. The Thead triggered premature labor and also put you in danger as well.” “Thead? That’s not dangerous. Fred and George used it as an ingredient in some of their over-seventeen novelty candies.” “Most of the time yes, but for pregnant women it can be deadly. Thead interacts with certain hormones your body produces in pregnancy. It becomes poison and starts attacking your organs.” Ginny shivered and pulled her baby even closer, his hand slipping away from Molly’s. “How did it get in my drink in the first place?” “We have the Kestrel Chasers to thank for that one,” Molly said darkly. “The Kestrels? The Quidditch team? Why would they…?” “Your MVP award,” Nell replied, rubbing Ginny’s knee in support. “You beat their star Chaser and they were out to get a little revenge. They paid a waiter to serve you the drink. The Thead was just supposed to make you act like a drunken fool when you made your acceptance speech. They had no idea you were pregnant. The waiter came forward afterward. He and all three Chasers are sitting in a holding cell somewhere.” Summoning a piece of paper from across the room, Nell laid it on Ginny’s bedside table. “It’s from the waiter, a kid named Andel Putnam. He just turned seventeen last week. When he turned himself in, he asked that he be allowed to give you a letter of apology.” Molly fumed. It looked as if she wanted to set the letter aflame. “He should be locked in a cell until he’s gray-haired and stuttering. All of them should.” “They didn’t know Ginny was pregnant,” Nell repeated quietly. “And they’ll all probably spend a good deal of their lives in Azkaban for what they thought was a harmless prank. But Andel came forward when he didn’t have to. No one would have been caught if it wasn’t for him.” She shrugged a little and Ginny saw her mother’s face soften. “I just think he’s earned the right to apologize.” Ginny eyed the paper for only a second before turning back to her baby. She had neither the energy nor the desire to deal with that situation just yet. “You have a very good heart,” Molly said to Nell, squeezing the healer’s hand. “The heart of a healer. Thank goodness you were at the ball and able to help her.” “Thank goodness that Aurors carry Portkeys to St. Mungo’s on them at all times,” Nell said. “Harry had his with him. He was…well, very upset when he found you and it took Ron yelling at him to remember he had it. Ginny, you have no idea how lucky you are that Harry was with you.” “Yes,” she agreed. She smiled down at her son and stroked his cheeks as his little tongue stuck in and out of his mouth. She knew how lucky she was to have a good friend like Harry. ****** Her mother and Nell were constants with Ginny as people came and went from her room in a steady flow over the next hour or so. It was only the necessity of a quick shower that explained Molly’s absence now. Some of Ginny’s visitors were healers and assistants evaluating her recovery and others were family, her brothers and sisters-in-law that had stopped in to see her awake and well. Ginny did her best to pay attention to them all; give them all hugs and kisses or answer their questions about her pain level. Truly, she tried her hardest, and yet their voices always drifted out of her now-clearer focus after only a few minutes or so. It was difficult to concentrate on anything when she had the most amazing person ever created in her arms. Every time her baby blinked, it was a blessing and every yawn was a gift. Even his soft cries and wails for food or comfort were beautiful, despite the painful clenches they caused around her heart. His cries meant that he was alive and here with his mother against all the odds. Ginny refused to let him be brought back to the nursery, even when the healers needed to exam her. Instead, the newborn waited patiently in his bassinet next to Ginny, always where she could see him. When she was free of the well-meaning healers, her son was placed back in her arms and didn’t leave them except for his nappy changes or her own quick trips to the loo–helped the ten steps across the room by her mother or Nell due to the weakness in her body that all the healers told her would take several weeks to fade fully. “So explain more to me about Almets,” she asked Nell after her friend helped her settle back into the bed. She held her arms out impatiently for the baby as Nell took her sweet time with the boy, cooing at him with wide eyes. “Well,” Nell began after easing her godson into Ginny’s hold, “as I said, they’re quite rare. Most people have never even heard of the subclass.” “I never did and I knew a Metamorphmagus. Teddy’s mother, Tonks. She didn’t mention that there was more than one type.” The baby started fussing, and Nell helped Ginny work her gown over her shoulder to feed him. The force with which he nursed surprised Ginny, but she was more than happy to take a small bit of pain to nourish her son. “There are several kinds of classes of Metas. The vast majority are like Tonks and Teddy, those who can change their physical features to match others. But there are some that have more limited abilities and can only change one aspect of their features. Maybe just their eyes or their hair.” She smiled down at the baby. “This little lad, though, will be able to do everything a fully grown Meta can do and much earlier, as well as being able to distinguish colors and shapes at a very young age. He may even have more talents. There are cases of Almets some being able to completely morph their voices. That’s where his hearing will come into play.” Ginny gazed down at the baby, his little head burrowed tightly against the swell of her breast as he suckled. According to her mother, he could hear her heart beating. It was how he knew who she was. “Will he be advanced in other areas? I mean, will he be smarter than children his age as he grows up? Or able to see or hear things that others can’t?” “His vision and hearing will never be greater than the average wizard. He just has it all right now as opposed to having it grow slowly over the first several years. As for his intelligence, that’s up to him. He’ll reach some of his milestones a little sooner. He’ll smile in recognition for the first time in a couple of weeks and he might start babbling or even talking before he’s six months. Crawling and walking might happen earlier as well, but for the rest of his cognitive development, there are no studies that show Almets to have a greater level of intelligence than other wizards.” Ginny smiled sheepishly. “Is it wrong to admit that makes me a little happy? I don’t know how well I would have done with a two year-old who’s smarter than me. He probably would have preferred Auntie Hermione to me if that was the case.” “You’re his mum,” Nell told her. “You’re going to be the most important person in his life for a long time to come.” “Good.” The baby’s suckling was the only sound in the room for a few minutes. Nell smoothed out a few wrinkles on the sheets. “Actually with Almets, research has shown the trait for it sometimes comes from the biological father. Did, uh, Lionel ever mention anyone in his family being a Metamorphmagus?” “No,” Ginny replied quietly, keeping her eyes on her son as she transferred him to her other breast. “He never talked much about his family. Only his mother, Angelique, and that was only to brag about the vast wealth she inherited from her father.” A horrible thought occurred to her and she looked to Nell in fright. “If anyone in his family was, could that connect Lionel to us? To him?” She pulled the baby in tighter. Nelly shook her head in assurance. “No, I don’t think so. When we realized what the baby was, I did a cursory glance of the American registry on Metamorphmagi. There was no one with the name Dresden on it. The trait–if it even came from him–probably came from his mother’s side, and even then it could have lain dormant generations before it popped up in this little guy.” Nell sighed wistfully, watching the baby nurse. “He’s so beautiful.” “Yes he is.” Ginny patted her hand. “You’ll get one of these for yourself soon. I’m sure of it. When Bart sees you with him, maybe everything will click in place for him. How completely right having a baby will be for the two of you.” “I hope so.” Nell smiled again as the baby sneezed a little and detached from Ginny’s breast for a moment before latching back on hungrily “I did overhear my husband telling Harry how cute he thought his godson was.” It was the first time all day that Ginny took the time to consider that she hadn’t seen Harry since she had woken up. In the glory of being with her baby, she hadn’t noticed that Harry’s face hadn’t been among any of the people filtering in and out of her room all day. Why wasn’t he here with her, with them? Didn’t he want to see the baby he had been speaking to these past few months now that the boy was here in the flesh? Dimly, she recalled Harry asking her distended stomach which ornaments to put on the Christmas tree sitting the living room of his house. Had all that excitement vanished once the baby was no longer inside her? Had reality set in for Harry, that they weren’t just playing house with a baby he had no claim to? The man does have a world outside of you, Ginevra. You can’t expect him to hang around a hospital for three days waiting for you to wake up. It wasn’t pleasant to think, but it was true. “Where…Is Harry busy or did…?” Ginny tried to ask, struggling to keep her emotions under control with the baby in her arms. His mouth finally eased against her and she pulled him up to her shoulder, patting his back. “He’s finally asleep,” Nell told her, retying Ginny’s gown for her. “He was exhausted. I was close to Stunning him to get him to lay down for a few hours.” “Why wouldn’t he rest?” The knock on the door interrupted Nell’s reply. “Are you up for some more visitors, Ginny?” Molly asked, poking her head in. “Of course,” she said, kissing her son’s head as he let out a tiny belch against her neck. Her mother, Charlie, George, Ron, and Hermione entered, all walking straight to the bed and showering Ginny with hugs and kisses, depositing flowers and small presents on the few remaining spots in the room free of them. Quietly, Nell blended into the small group and left the family in peace. Ginny would have rather she stayed. There were some questions she wanted answered. With her mother and Hermione fussing over her and the baby, and her brothers fighting for the one armchair in the room, there was no time or space for anyone without the last name Weasley. “Boys!” Molly hissed quietly at her sons. Their wrangling ceased at their mother’s familiar tone. “Stop that this instant! You are all grown men, for goodness sake! Besides, you know your father needs to sit and rest.” “Where is Dad?” Much like with Harry, Ginny hadn’t noted her father absence until he had been mentioned. “Why does he need to rest?” Her mother only grunted in annoyance while Hermione and her brothers bit back laughter. “He’s on his way, and he needs to rest because his obsession with Muggles has finally reached a point of insanity.” “Molly, don’t you think you’re being a little harsh?” Hermione asked. She took Nell’s spot on the bed, and Ron stood behind her, an arm wrapped around her shoulder, still in newly wedded bliss. “It really isn’t that bad.” “What happened?” Ginny asked again. Her mother’s answer was cut off by the sound of clicking metal coming from the doorway. Ginny’s eyes widened when she saw her father standing there, sweating and supporting himself between two long metal sticks underneath his shoulders, his left leg sticking out and wrapped in a thick white shell. Even though he moved slowly across the room with the aid of the sticks, his face lit up with a smile when he met his daughter’s eyes. “Oh sweet girl,” Arthur said when he finally reached her bedside. He leaned down and tucked her head under his chin, giving her a long kiss on the head. “Praise all of Wizardry that you’re both safe and sound.” “Daddy…” she sighed, moving her son into the same position her father held her in. “I’m so happy you’re here. I’m just sorry I scared you.” “Think nothing of it. As long as you and the baby are alright, any fright was worth it.” He pulled back and stroked her cheek before he smiled at his grandson. “I must say, Molly. I was regretfully lying to you all those years. Our daughter is the most beautiful mother I’ve ever seen.” “She is,” Molly agreed, folding her arms across her chest. “If only she wasn’t cursed with such a ridiculous father.” “Now, darling,” Arthur said, fighting to turn and face his wife. “This isn’t the time. Our daughter is recovering, and we have a handsome new grandson to spoil rotten to the core. Let’s put this silly little discussion behind us.” “I’d be more than happy to as soon as you get that monstrosity taken off your leg! We’re at a hospital, a magical hospital, and they could fix you up in a minute!” “Can someone please tell me what happened?” Ginny finally asked her brothers and Hermione, seeing that she’d get no answer from her parents. “Dad took a bit of a spill a few days ago,” Charlie explained, “trying to get off something the Muggles call an ‘escalator’ at an event in America. Broke his leg in three places.” “And wouldn’t let a reputable healer look at it once that idiot from the group tour mentioned how Muggles treat broken legs,” Molly fumed. “The idiot is named George and he isn’t an idiot,” Arthur argued. He grunted as he hobbled over to the armchair. “He runs that big white house they have there in the States, which is apparently a very important job.” He moaned in relief when he was finally settled in the chair. “I am a Muggle liaison for the Ministry of Magic and as such, it’s a part of my job to gain a deeper understanding of how Muggles live their daily lives. Apparently, these,” His brow furrowed and he looked to Hermione for guidance, “kestes?” “Casts,” she supplied with smile. “Yes, these casts,” Arthur knocked on the white casing, “are how Muggles heal themselves from these types of injuries. I simply felt it was my duty to become fully knowledgeable of what it means to not have use of my leg for six to eight weeks.” “ARTHUR WEASLEY, I COULD-” Molly began to roar before the baby started squalling at the noise. “Oh, there, there,” Ginny crooned to her son, cuddling him against her chest. “It’s alright, Snitch. Grannie Molly didn’t mean to yell in front of you, did you Grannie Weasley?” She fixed her mother with a glare. Ron burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” Ginny asked her brother over her son’s cries, giving him the same look. Ron shook his head, his shoulders shaking. “It’s just funny how it only took a little while with him to turn you into Mum. I thought it would take at least a week at home with him.” Despite herself, Ginny couldn’t help but join in as her family started laughing all around her. Even her mother’s frustration with her father was forgotten as Molly puttered around the room, straitening the flowers while trying to hide her own grin. “So Snitch, eh?” George asked when they had settled down and the baby was calm again. “I have to say, I didn’t think you’d choose something so untraditional for his name.” “Snitch is a terrific name,” Charlie chimed in, stealing a piece of chocolate from a Honeyduke’s box before Molly swatted at his hand. “As a former Seeker, I heartily approve of my nephew’s moniker.” “That’s not what I’m calling him,” Ginny told them, rocking the baby gently as his eyelids began to droop. “It’s just his nickname. I still haven’t settled on anything.” “Well, you better get on that,” Ron said. “Can’t have him leaving the hospital without a name. What are all his fans going to write on his get-well cards?” “His fans?” “You, precious sister, went into labor at the event of the holiday season,” George said, nudging her over to prop his feet up on the bed. “In front of about a hundred reporters and photographers. Add that to all the fame you’ve accumulated over the past weeks from eviscerating that pompous Skewrt Edgecombe, and your son has become the talk of the Wizarding world. I’m already getting requests at the shop for Brave Baby Weasley dolls and figurines.” He winked at her playfully. “If you sign off on it, I’ll be happy to cut you in on some of the profits.” She smacked the sole of his shoe as hard as she could, which given her still-weakened state wasn’t that hard. “No,” she said definitively. “I’m not thrusting him out in public. He’s not anyone else’s business but mine.” “It’s right of you to feel that way, Ginny,” Hermione said. “There just might not be anything you can do about it for right now. The papers have been filled with stories about him for the past two days. The press keeps trying to sneak into the hospital to see you and him. Director Robards has over a dozen Aurors undercover patrolling the halls to keep them at bay.” “All joking aside, it really might ease them down a bit if you released a picture of him or something,” Charlie said. Ginny looked down into the perfect features of her child, smoothing her thumb across the velvety skin of his cheek. He turned his head and started suckling on her little finger in his sleep. He was relying on her now and forever to protect him from harm. “No,” she said again. “No pictures, no press releases, nothing of the sort. They’ll have no piece of him for as long as I can help it.” She wouldn’t voice her other objection to the plan. If she let the public see a picture of him, part of that public would include Lionel. Holding him in her arms now, she couldn’t help but to think of those awful hours when Lionel had almost convinced her that her child shouldn’t exist at all. That man will NEVER know what this boy looks like, Ginny vowed silently. I will never let him see my baby. “Don’t worry over it, sweetheart,” Molly counseled her, stacking cards and letters into a neat pile. “Before you know it, the press and the public will move onto another story and completely forget about both of you. They always do.” “Still, he needs a name for us, his family, to call him by,” Ron argued. “I mean, he can’t go by Snitch Weasley forever. Especially if he ends up being rubbish at Quidditch.” Ginny smiled and gently kiss the tip of her son’s nose. “Do you really think he’s going to be anything less than a world-class Quidditch player by the time he’s old enough to read?” “Suppose not.” Ron held out his arms eagerly. “By the way, can I hold my nephew? None of us have been worthy enough to hold him in the nursery with Ha…with his bodyguard standing over him.” Just the thought of seeing her baby in someone else’s arms made her recoil a little, even if it was her brother. This was her baby. He was supposed to stay as close to her heart as possible now that he wasn’t living underneath it anymore. “Uh, no. Sorry, Ron. Not right now. But, uh, you are right about him not being named Snitch, though. He needs a real, true name.” “Was there anything at all you liked when you were thinking of it?” Hermione asked as Ron stepped back with a disappointed frown. “No,” Ginny said quickly. No names that she could use, at any rate. “Nothing…struck me as fitting him.” “There’s no need to fret over it,” Molly said, coming back to her bedside and sitting at Ginny’s side. Molly cuddled her daughter into her side. “His name will come to you in time. It’s an important decision, one you shouldn’t rush it without due thought.” “Exactly,” Arthur agreed, studying the framework of the sticks he used to walk. “Don’t want to go through what we did with Ronnie, now do you?” “Huh?” Ron asked his father. The sticks slipped out of Arthur’s hand, and it was only Charlie’s quick Seeker reflexes that kept them from clattering to the floor and waking the baby from his nap. Both Charlie and George were fighting a losing battle to keep from smirking while Arthur became fascinated with the tiled pattern of the floor. Ron turned to his mother with crinkled eyebrows. “What did you go through with me and my name?” Molly cursed as quietly as she could before planting an overly cheerful smile on her face. “Oh, it’s nothing really,” she said. “It’s just…well, you see when I was carrying you, I had several scans done by the midwife, and they all indicated that…that you were coming out a certain way and you just surprised us all by coming out exactly the opposite.” “I’m sorry?” “You,” George tried to say with a straight face, “were the one who was supposed to be the first Weasley girl born in seven generations.” “Okay,” Ron said, still trying to understand. Ginny realized at exactly the same time as Hermione, and the two women looked at each other, silently instructing the other not to say anything, that it would be more fun for Ron to figure it out on his own. “So I came out a boy. What does that have to do with my name?” “Well, in the confusion and the surprise–not to mention having five other boys to take care of–it took us a little while to figure out what to call you,” Arthur explained feebly. “More like three weeks,” Charlie muttered underneath his breath. George chortled and bit down hard on his knuckle. Ron eyed both of his guilty looking parents with trepidation. “S-so what did you call me in the meantime then?” Arthur smiled apologetically. “We…called you by the name we had originally picked out. After your Grannie Weasley.” Ron’s mouth dropped open in shock as he stood slowly. “Rose?!” he finally sputtered. “You called me Rose for almost a whole month?!” George and Charlie couldn’t hold back any longer and started laughing hysterically, George falling down to the floor. Grabbing his sticks, Arthur picked himself up and swatted at both of their knees until they throttled back to quiet giggles. Ginny herself almost bit through her teeth to keep her laughter inside while Hermione simply covered her mouth with her hand. “Keep your voices down, all of you! There’s a baby in the room. It wasn’t something we intended, Ronald,” Molly said, putting careful emphasis on his name as she walked over and took his hands. “We just didn’t have a backup ready at the time. The midwife claimed she searched and searched and never saw any sign of you little wil-” “Do not,” Ron hissed, pointing a finger at his mother, “make mention of my willy being little, woman!” “Now, son, don’t be so dramatic. We got it all sorted out in the end.” “Well, what took you so bloody long?!” “I would like to see you come up with a proper name for a child when you have five children running around at your feet and a newborn who never let go of your ti-bossom!” Molly whispered, casting a quick glance at the Snitch. Ron prepared to huff out a reply, but Hermione tugged on his elbow until he faced her. “You are Ronald Weasley,” she told her husband, keeping her features as schooled as possible. “It doesn’t matter how you started out in this world, it only matters what you go by now.” She kissed his cheek sweetly. “And besides, I happen to think that Rose is a perfectly wonderful name.” “Then you made a good choice in finally making Rosie here an honest woman,” Charlie said as Ron blushed to match his hair. With the shock of it all wearing off, even he couldn’t help smiling a little. You might not have a name yet, Ginny thought as she looked back down at her baby, but you already have a wonderful family. ****** Hours later, when night began to set in through the window in her room, Ginny was finally, truly alone with her son, for the first time. The need for rest after their vigil had sent most of the Weasleys back to their own homes. Her mother had offered to stay the night, but her poor father was truly helpless on his sticks and needed Molly more than Ginny did. Nell and Bart were still somewhere in the hospital, taking some long-overdue time for themselves and Harry, according to Nell, was still sleeping. Ginny paid them no mind. None of them were as important right now as watching her son. Propped up against the bed, she had her knees bent, the baby balanced on top of them. With the energy of the day fading, exhaustion kept trying to creep up on her broken and repaired body. She wouldn’t let it win. She couldn’t. It had been nearly a whole day and she still hadn’t had her fill of being with her son. Would she ever? Leaning down, Ginny placed a kiss on his forehead, trailing her lips down to the tip of his chin before she pulled back and smiled at him. No. I’ll never tire of looking at him. “You’re a miracle,” she told him gently. “A pudgy-fingered, milk-guzzling, squalling little miracle.” He caught one of her fingers in each hand and tried to raise them both up. “It doesn’t seem real yet. I don’t want to close my eyes because I’m almost afraid if I do, I’ll wake up with you in my belly. Although given what happened to us a couple of days ago, maybe it’s not such a bad idea.” The baby grew bored with her fingers and decided to practice opening and closing his own hands. Ginny rubbed the sole of his impossibly little right foot as she continued, her mood darkening. “Keeping you inside me where I can protect you forever and always seems reasonable enough to me after what those stupid Kestrels tried to do. I’ll tell you, I never liked them when I played. Bunch of mindless brutes, the lot of them.” She chuckled humorlessly. “So I won a stupid award: a meaningless little trophy and a piece of paper. That gave them the right to…to…” She swallowed deeply as the implications of what could have happened–what almost happened finally hit home. Against her will, her eyes caught site of the forgotten letter sitting on her table. She was a little surprised her mother hadn’t thrown it in a rubbish bin earlier. Moving slowly so as not to disturb the baby, Ginny leaned over and took the paper. Giving her son one last glance, she opened it up and began to read before she lost her nerve: Dear Ms. Weasley, I am the man who gave you the spiked Gillywater, and you have no idea how sorry I am for what I inadvertently helped to do. First, let me say how grateful I am that you and your child survived. Not because I was fearful of being convicted of a murder, but because I know that every life is precious, especially those that are just coming into this world. If I had even suspected that you might be pregnant, I would have thrown the drink down the first drain I saw. I meant you no harm at all. I swear it on my little sister’s life. Brendon Garring approached me at the ball and offered me twenty Galleons to give you the goblet of Gillywater. When I asked why, he said that he and his two other Chasers had slipped some Thead into it because they wanted you to be the laughingstock of the evening after taking the MVP from him. I was raised a Kestrels fan from the cradle, and it seemed almost like I was helping out my team, in a pathetic way. The money was a factor as well. I’ve been–I was saving to go study magical animals abroad. It would have made the trip possible. Those reasons both made it seem like such a good idea when I approached you. They weren’t. Not in the least and I knew it the second you took the drink, even before I saw that you were with child. I was just too scared to take the drink back when I saw that Harry Potter was with you. My fear shouldn’t have stopped me from going to you, and it shouldn’t have stopped me after I realized that you were…When I noticed you’re belly, I remembered potion classes with Professor Slughorn. What the Thead would do to a pregnant woman. By the time I got to you, it was too late. I shouldn’t have left you on the balcony. You looked so frightened and were in so much pain. I should have put your life above my own, but all I could imagine was what my parents were going to think of me when they found out what I had done. I thought if I left, maybe no one would ever have to know. My selfish fear is the only excuse I have for abandoning you. I think I’ll look back on that moment or two in every dream I have for the rest of my life. In my dreams, I hope I’ll be brave enough to stay and get you help or to drink down the blasted Gillywater myself. I hope I can be brave like in all the stories I heard of Mr. Potter. I wish with all my heart that this letter finds you in the best of health possible and that you and your husband have many happy years together with your son. I am so very sorry. Sincerely, Andel Putnam Ginny frowned in confusion. Husband? What is he talking about? Who would he think…? “Oh,” she breathed, looking down as the baby stared up at the ceiling in fascination. Her tears smudged the ink as they landed on the parchment. All throughout the day, Nell had warned her that her emotions could start swinging with the swiftness of a pendulum at any time. Many new mothers experienced something called post…something that made them laugh one second and sob like a sissy the next. Ginny had been so engrossed with loving her baby throughout the day that she hadn’t had a chance to feel sadness or anything close to it. Why would she? She was alive and her son was healthy. Wasn’t that now the very definition of joy? What more could she ever want in life? Apparently, quite a lot. Because when she looked down at her son–her perfect beyond perfect son, she wanted him desperately to change his eyes from brown to green, and it crushed her beyond repair. Her limbs shook as she cried as soundlessly as she could. The baby was jostled slightly and he started whimpering. Letting go of the letter, Ginny brought him up to her chest and rocked the both together. Instead of soothing him, her movements and her tears only seemed to agitate him further, which only served to upset Ginny even more. “I’m sorry,” she wept pitifully, her son’s cries rising in intensity next to her ear. “I’m so sorry…I just…I-I-I want you to be…” She couldn’t get the words out. It was too shameful to say aloud. All she could do was sob as she held him close. What kind of mother wishes her child was different in some way? What kind of mother wanted a baby, not even three days old, to be something he wasn’t? What kind of mother… Mother. Her tears slowed ever so as the word hammered over and over in her mind. Mother. Bloody hell, she was his mother, and she was crying more than he was! There was no one else in the world to care for him as she did and what was she doing? Trembling like a baby when the actual baby needed her to help him, to make him feel better, and to stop his tears. Her time for needing the childhood comforts of her mother was over. Now it was her turn to push aside her own pain and make everything alright for her boy. Tucking her bawling child into the crook of her arm, she hastily wiped her own tears and took in a deep breath. “Okay,” she croaked out, taking his clenched fist and bringing it to her lips. “It’s okay now. Mummy’s here, Snitch. Mummy’s here. Shh…Shh. You don’t need to cry anymore. No more tears. No more bad thoughts.” She put her nose against his forehead and breathed him in, fighting back her own tears as the baby’s reached a crescendo. “We’re both o-okay. We’re both just as we need to be.” The next fifteen minutes were arguably the longest of Ginny’s life, holding her child close and listening as he cried himself hoarse. Occasionally, a healer or an orderly would poke their head in the room only to have Ginny wave them away. She had to do this. It was her job, no one else’s. He isn’t ill. He isn’t injured. His nappy is clean, and he ate only half an hour ago. He just needs to cry, she told herself, wishing she was strong enough to stand of her own accord to pace with him. They’d both have to settle for rocking and bouncing on the bed. It’s normal. People sometimes just need to cry. It’s not fun for either of you, but it’s what he needs to do right now. Amazingly, his cries started fading to whimpers and then the whimpers into wet little snuffles. His red face started to turn back to its normal shade and his eyes drooped closed. Ginny leaned her head back against the pillows and closed her eyes, sighing in relief. “We’re okay,” she repeated quietly, her son breathing against her. Maybe she was allowed to take comfort from something to ease her pain. The thought made her smile as she dozed off. She wasn’t sure how long she slept before she heard soft footsteps walking near her bedside. Her eyes flew open and her pulse drummed as she sought out the disturbance in the darkened room. “Who’s there?” Ginny whispered, keeping her grip on the Snitch tight. “Show yourself.” She heard something fall to the floor beside her and she tensed. Slowly, the room brightened enough that she was able to make out someone standing over here. Someone with glasses and untamable black hair. “I’m sorry,” Harry whispered, shifting awkwardly on his feet and her pulse hammered for entirely different reasons. He kept his eyes away from her, trained on the bed railing and she shuffled over on the bed to try and hide Putnam’s letter underneath her. “I-I didn’t mean to... I woke up a little while ago and…and I had…it was stupid; I had flowers I wanted to give to you.” He rubbed a hand across his unshaven face and smirked bitterly. “What the hell am I thinking? You need to rest after everything you’ve been through. I-I’ll just-” Harry turned on his heel and looked to make a clear sprint to the door. With a quickness the healers had told her would take some time to regain, Ginny’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. “No,” she told Harry quietly, chancing a quick look at the baby. He seemed completely out of it so she tugged on Harry’s hand until he faced her. “Stay. Please stay.” It hurt seeing him. She couldn’t deny that. But she also couldn’t deny it would hurt worse to not see him at all, a lesson she had learned from keeping herself out of his life for three years. He still wouldn’t look at her. “You don’t have to pretend, Ginny,” he told her. “I know you don’t want to see me.” “Why wouldn’t I-?” “I just had to see with my own eyes that you…that you were safe. They’d only let one or two visitors in at a time when you…when they were treating you and I didn’t want your parents or your brothers to have to miss a chance to sit with you.” “I’m sure they wouldn’t have mind-” “And I made sure that Robards made the hospital a priority. We’ve had the best Aurors in the department here keeping an eye on things, just in case the four we’ve caught weren’t working alone or there was something more. You’re perfectly safe here, I promise you.” “I know I am, but I don’t-” Harry finally looked at her, and Ginny was stunned to see tears brimming in his eyes. “It doesn’t make up for what happened…for what I let happen,” he choked out. “I am…I am so sorry I put you in that kind of danger.” His gaze swung down to the Snitch and his mouth tightened. “The both of you.” Ginny would’ve given up a few years of her life in exchange for a third hand right about now since both of hers were occupied. That way she could use it to smack Harry upside the head, the stupid, wonderful man. Instead, she settled for gripping his wrist a little firmer. “It wasn’t your fault,” she told him. “Ginny, I-” “Shut it, it’s my turn to finish a sentence or two.” Pulling him down, she scooted over on the bed to give him room to sit. “I know you’re going to have to ignore years and years of conditioning to believe this, but what happened to me at the ball wasn’t your fault. It was a bunch of senseless jokes who couldn’t handle a woman taking something they thought was theirs.” She shook her head incredulously when his face remained the same guilt-ridden mask. “You…Harry, you saved us. You got us out of that ballroom and here to the hospital. We wouldn’t be alive right now if it wasn’t for you.” “You also wouldn’t have been in that ballroom in the first place if it wasn’t for me,” he argued. “If I hadn’t been so dead set on you getting to receive that damn award then none of this would have happened.” “You’re right,” Ginny agreed quietly. “But then if you want to play that game, Potter, I wouldn’t have won that award if I had kept my wand in my pocket when I heard Pressley Edgecombe on the wireless.” She raised an eyebrow in defiance. “Are you going to tell me that this was my fault?” “No,” he said immediately. “Of course it wasn’t.” “Then believe me when I tell you that it wasn’t yours,” she implored him, knowing instinctively he wouldn’t truly believe it. That was just Harry. He carried the pain of those who suffered inside of him, his own personal chains to bear. At least some of the guilt left his eyes. His beautiful eyes. Unconsciously, she looked into the face of her sleeping son. “Believe me when I tell you I’ll never be able to repay you for keeping us both alive.” After a long time–which Ginny used to further commit her son’s features to her memory–Harry finally said, “You don’t have to.” With the utmost care, he placed his hand upon her knee. “I had…I needed you and him alive as much as…” He cleared his throat, loosening the top button on his white dress shirt. “This isn’t the best time to continue our talk from the ball, but then…maybe it is because life is so very short and you never know what’s going to happen from one hour to the next. How many reminders do I really need that I have to make my time with you count? When we were on that balcony at the ball, before you…Ginny, it was the-” “Harry, wait,” she told him, pulling her eyes up to meet Harry’s hopeful ones. “I don’t understand. What are you saying?” He smiled a bit, almost nervously, and squeezed her knee. “Like I said, my timing isn’t great. But we need to finish what we started, for the both of us. I mean, for the three of-” “You were on the balcony with me at the ball?” Ginny interrupted. “When I collapsed? Nell said that I was alone when it-” “No, no. Before you went into labor. Before you drank the…” The smile slipped from his face and Harry pulled back a little, unblinking. “What’s the last thing you remember? From the night of the ball?” Ginny searched the recesses of her memory from that night, trying to understand what he was alluding to. Closing her eyes, she looked and sorted until she finally saw a small, familiar Christmas tree before blackness took over. “Leaving,” she told him, opening her eyes. “Leaving from the house with Bart and Nell to go to the…” She trailed off as Harry turned away and bent over, wrapping his hands around the back of his neck. A small groan of agony escaped his lips. Ginny reached out with her hand for his shoulder, but the second she touched him, he sprang off the bed and walked out the door. Something crashed in the hallway a few seconds later, waking the baby. He didn’t cry, only stared up at Ginny in confusion. “I don’t know,” she said to her son. “I don’t know what’s going on.” What did I say to Harry at the ball? Ginny thought, struggling to understand why he was so upset. Did we fight? Is that why he feels guilty, because we fought and then I drank the poison? What could they have rowed about that was hurting him so much now? Another crash rang out, smaller this time. Maybe…Maybe we didn’t fight. Maybe we did…no, now why on Earth would that have happened? Worried and scared, Ginny was considering trying to get out of the bed when Harry reappeared in the doorway. He didn’t look like he was calm. Only resigned. “Don’t get up,” he told her as he walked back to the bed. He gently eased her down again, sitting beside her. Bending down, she thought she heard him murmur something under his breath, but it was too faint for her to hear. When he rose, he presented her with a bouquet of white roses, dusting them off before setting them on her bedside table. “For you.” “Thank…Thank you. Harry, what happened at the ball?” Every inch of him looked to want to say something. Instead, he sighed and smiled a little. “It doesn’t matter.” “Yes, it does,” she countered. She may not be able to remember, but it had obviously been important. His smile would have had humor in it if his eyes didn’t look so sad. “How can you know that?” “Because it clearly matters to you and-” Harry shook his head. “The only thing that matters to me is that you and the Snitch are both okay. That’s it. That’s all I need.” His words may have sounded reassuring, but there was so much pain emanating from him. Ginny didn’t know if anything she could say could fix it. Good thing you have something far better than words, Weasley. Nodding, she asked Harry, “Do you want to hold the baby?” Some of measure of happiness came back to him. “Are you sure?” Harry asked hopefully. “I…Nell mentioned you weren’t really letting other people hold him.” It was true. She hadn’t even let her mother hold the baby today. It seemed almost wrong to imagine him in someone else’s arms. But when she imagined Harry holding him, it didn’t feel wrong. Not in the least. “You’re not other people,” Ginny told him as she carefully transferred the Snitch into Harry’s embrace. The baby cooed and smacked his lips together, staring up at Harry, who in turn tucked him expertly into his body. “Hey mate,” Harry said to him, his smile yielding away from hurt into comfort. “Do you remember me? I know it’s been awhile since we talked.” “Not that long,” Ginny added, almost overcome by the sight of the two people she loved most together. “It’s only been a couple of days since we put the ornaments on the tree.” A new flash of guilt crossed Harry’s face, but it vanished quickly. “Right,” he said. “Just a couple of days.” The baby let loose a small sneeze, and Harry smiled even deeper at the scrunched up face he made. “I bet Father Christmas is going to have loads of presents for you under the tree at home.” In the span of seventy-two hours, Ginny had been poisoned, ripped open, kept under a blanket of unconsciousness, found her true self in meeting her son, and had managed to hurt the man she loved terribly. She should have been an absolute basket case, headed straight for the fourth floor of the very hospital she was in. But she wasn’t feeling crazy or irrational or anything else. Watching her son’s hair start to slowly turn black as Harry held him, Ginny only felt perfect calm. |
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