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SIYE Time:19:09 on 28th March 2024
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Foolish
By Tonksaholic

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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: 154042; Chapter Total: 6602
Awards: View Trophy Room






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Author’s Note: And one year later, here we are, twenty-two chapters strong. Thanks to everyone for all the support and to my beta crew for keeping me focused and on point throughout this difficult chapter. Please let me know what you think as we get ready to wrap this up.




The Wounds of Love






Ginny looked around the packed room, the music and celebration roaring in her ears. People kept coming up to her, waiting to talk about the game and her spectacular play, but all she wanted to do was set her eyes on Harry.

Where was he? It had been hours without any sign of him. Bad enough that bloody Snape’s detention had made him miss the greatest comeback his team–may be any team in the history of Hogwarts–had ever had, but now to make him miss the victory party as well?

There were many words (and more than a few spells) Ginny would be happy to hurl at the greasy-haired git of a professor. All that would accomplish though would be Ginny getting as many detentions as Harry, probably more.

Hmm…maybe they’d share them. Maybe she’s end up sitting alone in a classroom with just Harry. Maybe someone would, perhaps, place some of Fred and George’s Regenerating Rash Cream on Snape’s chair and he’d have to go to the Hospital Wing, leaving her and Harry with nothing to do but-

“Oi! Earth to Ginny!” Ron sidled up beside her, two ham sandwiches in one hand and the silver Quidditich Cup tucked under his arm. Ginny had no doubt it would join him in his bed that night. “You’re still up in the air during the match, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yes,” Ginny covered quickly for her distraction. “Haven’t gotten off the broom in my head yet.”

“Nor should you. That was a bloody good catch. Vicki Krum probably wouldn’t have been able to grab that Snitch.”

Ginny blushed a little at the compliment. She had been lucky, really. Her Seeking skills were quite rusty and it had been pure luck that Cho Chang hadn’t seen the Snitch hovering near her right foot. Ginny had had to let far easier catches go earlier in the match until the point differential favored them and she had needed every inch of her small frame to reach out to grab the fluttering gold ball. She could practically still feel it in her hand.

And the sound of Cho’s growl of frustration when the whistle blew would conjure many a Patronus for Ginny in the years to come.

The only blemish to the day was the fact that Harry hadn’t been out there flying with her; hadn’t even been outside the castle to see it. She would have given anything in the world for him to have been there. Quidditch was the one thing he had in his life these days to distract him from whatever fresh hell Voldemort had waiting up the pike. He had told her so himself on one of their walks back from practice and now Snape and McGonagall had taken it away. Of course, Harry deserved some punishment for Draco’s injuries; he didn’t make any excuses for being stupid to use one of the Half-Blood Prince’s spells without knowing what it could do. But to rob him of Quidditch…it was ghastly.

There had been a few times when she had caught him staring forlornly as she, Katie, and Demelza walked out of the Common Room in the evening to get in extra practices, Dean happily trailing along with them, that she had almost quit in protest. Harry was watching as she took his position away from him and it made her feel so terrible, so small, and oh so guilty. The only thing that stopped her was the thought of the years and years (and years and years) of torture she’d receive from her brothers, especially Ron, if she gave up on Quidditch.

See? Harry James Potter was making her seriously consider giving up playing the sport she had been created for. Who had she been kidding when she told Hermione she was over him?

Ron finally drifted off to impress the Creevey brothers, leaving Ginny to make a lap around the snack table, glancing up every once in a while to the door to see if it would open. It was after two o’clock. Surely Snape couldn’t keep him in the dungeons all day. He couldn’t stand to be around Harry for that long a period of time.

She needed to see Harry so badly, to see his face light up when he learned they had won by her catch. All those walks back from the pitch; the dinners together laughing over the twins’ latest invention; the quiet studying in the Common Room, sharing a sofa or a table together. It couldn’t all just be in her mind. It wasn’t. He sought her out just as much, if not more, these days. He could do all those things with Ron or Hermione, but he didn’t. He chose to do them with her.

Harry chose her.

Her nerves were trying to crawl out of her belly through her pores and no amount of deep breathing was settling them. Nothing could make this wait worse.

“Hey Gin.”

Wonderful. Just what she needed right now.

She forced a smile on her face. He had scored four goals today, after all. “Hi Dean.”

“Great party, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Thirsty?” He held up a glass for her. “Got one for you. Gillywater. I remember how you liked it.”

“No, I’m fine thanks.” She had only drunk it that one time with him because he had gone to so much trouble to plan a picnic for them at the beginning of the term back when they had been…

Oh bollocks.

Dean shifted back and forth nervously and Ginny shook her head in annoyance. He actually thought that just because they had won a championship on the same team (owed to nothing more than the fact that they couldn’t legally fly with only Katie and Demelza as Chasers) that the two of them still had a chance?

“Listen,” he began, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what went wrong between us lately and I think I figured it out.”

Yes, so had she. Dean treated her like glass, never got her riled up about anything, and didn’t have eyes that reminded her of fresh pickled toad. In other words, he wasn’t-

“Harry!”

Ginny whipped her head around so fast that the end of her plait stung her cheek. Ron was standing in front of him, holding the cup out for inspection, but Harry’s eyes were roaming around the room for something else. The last bit of need that had been holding her back from celebrating this momentous occasion faded away and she knew then that nothing in the world would feel as good as putting her arms around him right now.

Taking off through the boisterous crowd, Ginny raced toward Harry as fast as she could, beaming even as she felt sharp pinpricks of desire and longing nip at her stomach and chest. She caught his eye just before she launched herself at him, meddling brother and the dozens of others with them be damned, and hoped with all her might that he’d catch her.

He didn’t.

Harry backed away quickly and Ginny was left there standing with her arms wide open, the frozen smile melting off her face. What was happening? Harry was…he was supposed…these past weeks…she wasn’t just…?

“What’s wrong with you, Ginny?” He studied her quizzically before smirking. “Did a Bludger get you in the head today? You didn’t honestly think I would kiss you?”

She had. She truly had. Her arms fell limp to her side and she wrapped them around herself, suddenly very, very cold. Why was this happening?

He laughed at her silence. “Oh, poor Ginevra. Didn’t those storybooks you read about me as a little girl tell you? Harry Potter doesn’t kiss whores. That’s what you are, aren’t you? The Whore of Gryffindor? The Gryffinwhore.”

“GRYFF-IN-WHORE! GRYFF-IN-WHORE! GRYFF-IN-WHORE!” The entire room broke out in the loud chant yet it did nothing to deafen the dull roaring in Ginny’s ears and she shriveled into herself as deep as she could. Harry simply smiled wider.

“Don’t worry, though. Just because I wouldn’t let you lay a hand on me, even if it would bring my parents back from the grave, doesn’t mean I don’t know someone who would be more than happy to take a piece of yourself from you.”

Harry turned her by the shoulder until she was facing away from him to look straight into Lionel’s eyes. The blonde wizard gripped the handle of a gray pram with both hands. Ginny could hear small whimpers and cries coming from inside and she lurched forward, only to have Harry’s grip tighten painfully on her shoulders in restraint.

“It’s alright, darling,” Lionel said as he started to walk away from her with her son. “I’ll send you a picture of him every couple of years.”

“NNNNOOOO!”


******
Ginny shot up from the bed, soaked in sweat and the front of her nightshirt stained with milk. The Snitch wailed from the little crib Mrs. Nettles had given her for the hotel room and Ginny stood on shaky legs to fetch him, gathering his tiny body close to hers as she sat them both down on the bed.

Hastily, she freed her breast enough so he could latch on and winced at the urgency of his draw. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. You were hungry, weren’t you? I can’t believe I didn’t hear you.” It always struck her in these moments how fragile he was and how strong she needed to be for him.

“I’m glad you’re eating better. You had Mummy and Auntie Nell worried for a few days. I know things are…different now, but you shouldn’t let that affect your growing. That’s all you should be worried about, getting a roly-poly belly that jiggles when you laugh. I know that neither of us has had much to smile about lately.” Ginny did her best to hold back her sigh. “It would please Mummy ever so much if you would give her a smile. Just a little one would do. Mummy might even give you a chocolate frog or two if you can manage it, even though she’d kick herself later.”

The baby responded by closing his eyes and suckling harder. Ginny understood him perfectly. She fell into silence, letting her son enjoy his midnight snack while her thoughts drifted through the past few weeks and how different things truly were.

It actually wasn’t that farfetched that she hadn’t heard the Snitch crying; sleep was a currency she wasn’t being paid in lately. Between caring for the baby, getting settled at the Green Swallow Inn, and spending every spare moment either getting her new house ready for her arrival or preparing for the custody hearing that would determine whether or not Ginny was an adequate mother, there was hardly any time for Ginny to focus on mundane things like eating or sleeping. The fact that sleeping only brought on nightmares of memories mixed with horror, like the one that had awoken her that night, didn’t help matters much.

“I like this room, don’t you?” She forced as much cheer into her voice as she could, fingering the baby’s foot. “This isn’t our first stay here, you know. We were in this room when Mummy came to Hastom last summer and you were in my belly. Just an itty-bitty thing, really. No bigger than a button and yet everything changed with you. Do you know that? Do you know how much different everything in Mummy’s life is now?”

Of course he didn’t. He wasn’t even three months old, the poor boy. All he knew was when he needed milk, when he needed to shut his eyes, when he needed his nappy changed, and when he needed a cuddle.

That’s not true and you know it. He knows very well how different things are in his world. He knows that he’s not sleeping in his bassinette. He knows there are too many people puttering around this place, even with all the Silencing Charms. He knows that Harry isn’t…

Ginny glanced down quickly, hoping her son hadn’t somehow managed to hear the name she had just thought. Three weeks since they had last seen the man and the baby still wailed endlessly and changed his hair to midnight black if anyone so much as whispered Harry’s name in his presence. It was also the only thing that would get him to shift his colors anymore. The locks of his hair grew just a little bit each day but they remained the same dark copper color he had been born with.

It had been the right decision, at first. The day she had last seen Harry, when Nell and Bart had burst into the lake house a little after twelve o’clock, hair disheveled and clothes hastily thrown on (after what looked like an early afternoon attempt at procreating) to find her still as a statue on the couch with the baby and tear-swollen eyes, seeing Harry again had been the last thing in the world she could have done. She didn’t have the strength for it. Even thinking of the words he had said to her brought choking sobs to her throat. Numbness was her only defense against the throbbing lashes of agony that threatened her from all sides and she clung to it as tightly as she could. All she was able do that day was watch as Bart set off to find Harry, leaving Nell to lead Ginny and the baby back to her and Bart’s small cottage. The healer spent the day coaxing food into Ginny and putting the Snitch to his mother’s breast when he needed to eat, alternately apologizing for not seeing the blasted article until it was too late to intercede with Harry and begging Ginny to tell her what had happened.

“Just tell me what he said,” Nell had pleaded. “There’s…We can fix this. Nothing’s impossible in this world until you’re dead, Ginevra.” Nell took a deep breath before she spoke again. “I-I told Bart about the Universal Truth potion, about what Lionel did to you. I’m sorry. I had to. You can be angry and yell at me if you want to, you can even report me to the I.A.H., but he needed to know the whole story if we’re going to help you. Everyone needs to know.” She nearly growled in frustration at Ginny’s lack of response. “At least tell me what’s happening with that…that good for nothing sperm donor. The article said he plans to raise the baby in America with him. We can’t let that happen! Bart will be back here any minute with Harry and we need a plan if we’re-”

The Snitch had tucked his body even deeper into his mother’s chest, letting out an ear-splitting cry.

“P-Please don’t say his name around us,” Ginny managed to say weakly over her son’s distress. “I have to…not for a while…I just can’t...” Turning away from her friend, she did her best to soothe her son.

She needn’t have worried about seeing him. Harry didn’t come back. Not that night nor the next nor the next after that. Bart could find no trace of him anywhere and a thorough yet discrete search conducted by Harry’s fellow Aurors, including Ron, hadn’t come up with anything either. Ginny imagined the villagers and her loved ones were teaming with questions and theories about the recent news in her life; if she could be bothered to leave the safety of the Nixon’s guestroom or to open a letter, she might have concerned herself with explanations. To do that was to risk feeling something and Ginny had no desire to engage in such foolishness.

Finally, three days after Harry’s disappearance, Bart came home with news.

She had just settled the baby into the small drawer Nell had transfigured into a cradle when she heard her hosts speaking downstairs in hushed, urgent voices.

He’s back. Bart found him and he’s here.

Even though every step into the living room, every step closer to Harry, hurt from her feet up to where her heart had once been, she kept going. Stagnancy was proving ineffective and the need for motion–any kind of motion–was hard to ignore. Thankfully, she was clean. Nell had threatened to send a photograph of Ginny to Molly unless Ginny bathed that morning. Her formerly limp, stringy hair was now presentable. Ginny touched a lock of it in wonder. Did she actually care how she would look to Harry? That was unexpected. She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not, but at least it was something new.

Shaking her head, she tiptoed down the steps, doing her best to ready herself for the sight of Harry hunched over on the tan couch or kneeling over the side of an armchair. She was so focused on preparing for that, she was wholly unprepared for the sight of Bart and Nell whispering animatedly, no sign of Harry whatsoever.

“I don’t understand you, Bart Nixon!” Nell admonished him. “You told me when you found him that you would-”

“Well, things changed! You know what else? Women do not look attractive in denim skirts, regardless of length. Will never happen. Ever. Candy is awful for you, even though cardboard-covered sugar tastes better than any vegetable.”

“Bart…”

Uh, let’s see what else? It took me five miserable dates to museums and art galleries before Annabeth Pollack let me get to second base with her-”

“She better have been have fat.”

“Size two, but she had a very hairy upper lip. I will never be able to parallel park a car. I will never have a six-pack of abs, and despite every letter I’ve ever written George Lucas, the Ewoks are still in subsequent releases of Return of the Jedi.” He shrugged helplessly. “Babe, life doesn’t care what we wish for. Sometimes you just have to let it take you somewhere while you hang on.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know.”

“I mean, it’s just absurd on its premise.”

“I hear you.” Bart snorted in contempt. “You’re telling me that George Lucas thought the audience would buy walking teddy bears being able to take down a few All-Terrain Scout Transports with just logs and vines? That is-”

Nell grabbed his chin and pointed his face towards hers. “That is not what I meant.”

“Yeah, I get that. I’m actually kind of a smart guy. I just…” Bart sighed.

“And he knows everything? About the blackmail and everything she sacrificed to protect his reputation and what she’s been like here these past few days? You didn’t leave anything out?”

"No, Harry is fully briefed on the entire situation. I know Ron and Hermione have been writing him nonstop, too but it hasn’t made a difference. He hasn’t changed his mind, babe. He isn’t coming back.”

It was Ginny’s own fault. She had left the safety of the bedroom to venture back out into the world and this was what she was greeted with. True, she hadn’t felt like she’d be able to stand being in a room with Harry a few minutes ago, but that was a few minutes ago; practically a whole other lifetime, one where perhaps Harry was just working up the nerve to see her or even finding some way to stop Lionel from claiming the Snitch. In this new lifetime, the reality was that Harry did not want to see her and that made her feel…feel…

Angry.

No, not angry.

Furious. Short of anyone with a Dark Mark on their arm, she couldn’t remember ever wanting to throttle someone at that moment more than Harry Potter.

He had said horrid things to her; things that no man who claimed to be decent should ever say to a woman, and now, in the aftermath, he didn’t even have the courtesy to look her in the eye again? The mistakes she had made in her life could fill a seven-hundred page book, and the ones involving Harry alone would probably be about two-thirds of it. Ginny would never deny that. However, if she had ever done to someone what Harry had done to her–used words to viciously wound them past the point of mere pain–she knew she would never be able to live with herself until she made it right. The very least she could do was give them an apology to their face.

It seemed Harry didn’t think she was worth that. With every bit of history between them, for all the tears and blood they had shed for one another, she was undeserving of the words, “I’m sorry”.

That bastard.

It wasn’t at all pleasant but at least the news of Harry had been the motivation Ginny needed to force herself to push onward. That night, after she had crept back up the stairs as quietly as she had come down, she had sent an owl over to the proprietor of the Green Swallow Inn, Mrs. Nettles, and arranged for boarding. Her next owl was to Sapien Stellner, to ask if her original plot of land provided by the village was still available for her to build a small home on. There would be no more hurting people she loved dearly. Staying with Nell and Bart was putting them squarely in the middle of a conflict between two people they considered family. Ginny couldn’t ask that of them anymore. Her last letter had been to Hermione. She needed the best legal advice she could get if she was going to keep her child.

The weeks since that night had been some of the most difficult Ginny could remember in a lifetime that was already too young for such troubles. Thankfully, none of her troubles were of a financial nature. When Barnabas Cuffe learned of the article in the Daily Prophet that triggered this latest nightmare, his actions had been swift and effective. Ginny had been given an extension on the start date of the columnist position, with full pay and benefits, and just to sweeten the cauldron, Wilhelmina Rutherford had been given her walking papers. Ginny hoped she and dear Pressley would be happy together, commiserating at the bottom of a bottle. However, even the downfall of two miserable excuses for witches couldn’t alleviate all her woes.

Her parents and her brothers had all received Floo calls to explain the situation with Lionel and why it had escalated to the point it had. There were few things in her life that caused her as much aching in her heart as watching her brothers’ faces while she told them of the memories Lionel had used to control her. She was the youngest and the laws of nature dictated that she be protected by them, not the other way around. Ginny was nothing if not someone who fought against the traditional. All five of her brothers showed their Prewett heritage in their rage against Lionel; it was only the harsh reminder from Ginny of what could happen in the custody proceedings if any of them were accused of trying to kill Lionel that tempered their resolve to confront the man themselves.

Her parents’ reaction was one of quiet horror, partly because of the struggles Ginny had faced but also because it seemed that they might lose another son due to their daughter’s choices. Fred’s death had aged them both years overnight; Ginny’s tumultuous love life and the distress it was causing for so many people looked to be tacking on another decade or so.

But it wasn’t her mother’s tears or Bill’s shame or even Harry’s retreat that turned Ginny’s stomach over and over on a constant daily loop. It was the papers that had arrived her first night back at the Green Swallow:

Petition for Custody of Unnamed Minor Child (A.K.A. Baby Boy Weasley)


Dear Ms. Weasley,

This letter is to inform you that Lionel Dresden (Petitioner) is seeking full legal and physical custody of the minor male child born to you, Ginevra Weasley (Respondent) on December 19th, 2002 in London, England. Petitioner claims that Respondent is an unfit parent due to past and recent mental instabilities and is neglectful of said minor child’s basic needs. Petitioner is also seeking to limit the Respondent’s future contact with the minor child. Respondent has seven days to reply to the Petitioner’s claims and/or to make additional claims against the Petitioner.

A hearing on the matter is set for March 11th, 2003. All parties must be present to…


Ginny had almost burned the scroll on the spot, but Hermione’ voice rang loudly in her subconscious.

Destroying a legal document?! Are all Weasleys born without a basic understanding of common sense? I owe Ron an apology then. For years, I thought it was just relegated to him.

So the damned piece of paper sat alone by her bedside table. It was the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing she saw before she went to sleep; a constant reminder of where her focus should truly be: Her son and his well-being.

The baby let go of her breast on his own and Ginny settled him over her shoulder to burp. “I’m going to find a way to beat him,” she promised the Snitch. “You won’t ever lay eyes on him in person, not if I have any say in the matter. Auntie Hermione is helping us and she’s a very, very smart witch. If anyone can figure out a way around that mean man’s deep pockets, it’s her. She’ll make the court see that I’m the only one to take care of you.”

There was no other outcome that Ginny would let herself visualize. She needed strength now more than ever and imaging even the possibility that some judge could or would take her child away from her had the potential to break her beyond repair.

A soft belch in her ear brought a genuine–albeit small–smile to her face. Gently, she set the baby down on the bed and leaned on her elbow to gaze down at him as he cast wide eyes around the candlelit room. She might pay for it with a few yawns tomorrow, but she couldn’t handle the thought of not being able to watch her child in the quiet stillness of the night.

“We have a lot of good people fighting on our behalf and working to beat the bad…” Ginny sighed, laying her free hand on her son’s warm stomach. “I shouldn’t call him names in front of you, should I? You’re here because of him. I can hate what he’s doing to us, hate it to the tallest mountains in the world, but I can’t allow myself hate him. Not anymore. I can’t let my emotions keep taking me over. You’re a part of your…your birth father and if I hate him, it’d be like hating a small piece of you. There would be nothing right about that.” She trailed her fingers over the smooth yellow material of his sleeper. “Your Grannie made this for you. She’ll be making a lot of clothes for you as you get bigger. Mummy gave it her best effort, but knitting will have to be left strictly in Grannie Weasley’s hands.” Ginny giggled softly. “You should have seen some of the things I tried to make for you when you were still inside me. This one time I was making you a jumper. Silly Mummy, though, forgot to put any sleeves on it. My face turned redder than my hair when Ha-”

She thought she had caught herself just in time, but the Snitch still looked to her with expectant eyes. When her mouth slowly closed shut, the baby turned his head away from her, breaking off a tiny piece of his mother’s heart as Ginny saw the unmistakable pain in his bright brown eyes.

“I’m sorry Harry isn’t here anymore,” she whispered, laying her head down on the pillow. The baby started whimpering lightly at the name. Ginny nestled closer to him and laid her lips against his head as she kept talking. “I know that you must miss him very much and I’m so sorry we fought in front of you. We must have scared you with our loud noises and banging all about the house. But you don’t care about any of that. All you want is for things to be the way they were before, with Mummy keeping you safe and warm while Harry was telling you all sorts of funny stories.

“None of it was your fault, though. You did absolutely nothing wrong, nothing to make Harry go away.” Tear pricked at the back of her eyes, even as the baby’s whimpers faded to quiet sniffles. “You are perfect in every way. Mummy…Mummy’s the one who isn’t perfect. She’s the one who lied, despite being given so many chances to make things right. She…I was just scared. Scared of what would happen to people I loved. Scared of how people would look at me. I may have hated the way Harry said it, but he was right about one thing: I kept on lying. I let myself be afraid and everything just got out of hand until I thought I had too much to lose if I told the truth. Don’t ever, ever let yourself get in that deep with a lie, sweetheart.

“I wish that Harry was here, if only for you. I still…it’s still hard for me to think about him. I know that a part of what happened was he was just so angry over what he had learned, but that’s the thing: When you get bigger, even when you know why someone behaved the way they did, it can still be hard to forgive them. I may not be able to see him without getting angry again. He should still see you, though.” Ginny let herself remember a time when the thought of Harry made her smile. “He was so wonderful with you. He could always get you settled down, no matter if your tummy was upset or if the bathwater had been a little too warm or if you woke up from a bad dream. He seemed…He seemed like he cared about you very much.” She sighed in frustration. “That’s another thing that makes me a little barmy. I know why Harry’s stayed away from me. He’s still very angry. I just don’t understand how he can stand being away from you. I could never imagine not wanting to see your face every second of the day. There’s a lot of mistakes I’ve made and a host of other I’ll make in the years to come, but if you never believe another word I say, then please at least believe me when I tell you that you matter to me more than breathing.”

The Snitch stared up Ginny for a moment before his hand reached up and patted gently at her cheek. She took it and placed it at her lips.

“I love you so much, sweet boy.”

******

Ginny shook her head in annoyance, waving her wand again. The wall in front of her changed from beige to something that, according to the copy of Delphina’s Compendium of Color Spells she was holding, was called burnt sienna. Whatever it was, it made her eyes water slightly and hers certainly did enough of that lately without any additional help. Ginny simply waved her wand, the walls of her new living room becoming bare once more, wondering what on Earth a color called xanadu would like.

A knock on the door interrupted her search. “Come in,” she called, not bothering to see who it was.

There was silence for a moment and Ginny finally turned to see who she had let into her home. Her back stiffened when the weathered gray eyes of Sapien Stellner greeted her.

“Good day, Citizen Weasley.”

“Hello,” she replied quietly.

“I have come, on behalf of the village Council, to see that you are settling well into your home.”

“Thank you for taking the time to do so. As you can see,” Ginny indicated to the cardboard box in the corner of the empty room, “I have everything here all ready.”

“Your son?”

“Bart and Nell have him. They should be by soon. I wanted to get everything set up first.”

“Please, allow me.” With barely the slightest flick of Sapien’s hand, the box opened and a torrent of objects flew out. Ginny watched in silence as furniture, lamps, curtains, and assorted knickknacks assembled in the room in front of her, or streamed by her to travel off to the side kitchen or upstairs to the bedrooms. The porcelain tub setting itself down on the floor above Ginny’s head ended the short frenzy and she nodded at Sapien, her house in perfect order all around her.

“Thank you,” she said again, turning back to her walls.

“I see that you are angry with me Citizen Weasley.”

“Well, given that you have empathic abilities, I’m not too impressed that you got that right.”

“You are upset over the decision of the Council to allow Mr. Dresden to take custody of your son, should he be granted it, as opposed to denying Mr. Dresden or any other court official presiding over the matter access to the infant while he is here in Hastom.”

“Look at that. You’re two for two. I’d think about taking your act on the road if I were you.”

“We are not a sovereign nation. We are protected in part from the outside world due to treaties we have established with the existing government of Great Britain. If a citizen of Hastom were to commit a criminal offense against that government while in our borders, such as murder or kidnapping, we would not keep them here. We would turn them over to the lawful authorities.” Sapien stepped further into the room, his long cloak swishing loudly in the stillness of Ginny’s fury. “If a court deemed that Mr. Dresden is the legal guardian of your son, then we would have no choice-”

“There are always choices in life. What you mean is that you have no plans to avail yourself of those choices.”

Sapien was quiet for a long moment.

“Yes, I suppose that is the way to put it. We choose not to. I choose not to. I know that you yourself are familiar with choices and their consequences. You are not unique, Citizen Weasley. You are a mother who loves her child tremendously and fears losing him to someone that you consider unfit. Your story has been told countless times by countless other women and is more than likely being lived by countless others at this moment. Why should your feelings and desires hold more sway than any other? Why do you deserve extra help more than any other?”

“Because,” Ginny replied, trembling, “I am a citizen of Hastom and so is my son. We stand stronger together as a whole than as hundreds of one. I think I listened to those words come out of your mouth once upon a time. I see now what they really meant to you.”

“They are the basis of my entire life. And you are right. You and your child are both citizens. With that title comes the responsibility of abiding by the laws of this land and one of those laws proclaims that we must turn over children involved in custody disputes to their legal guardian.” He put his hand on her stiff shoulder. “I know how you must feel and-”

“Really?” Ginny whirled around. “You know? You know what it feels like to live every second of your life with a scorching ball of lead growing bigger and bigger in your stomach as you’re waiting for some judge who doesn’t even know you to look down from his bench and decide if you should keep your child or not?”

“I did not mean to-”

“Or how about watching all around you as the people you love scramble to try and help you pick up the mess you made of your life?” Ginny pressed on him. “Especially considering it was a mess you made trying your damnedest to make sure they would never know exactly how fucked up your life actually was. You understand what that’s like?”

He backed away from her, wincing slightly. “Citizen Weasley, please-”

“But I am sure you know perfectly well what it’s like to listen to the person you love call you a whore,” Ginny said, stabbing her finger against Sapien’s chest. “You know what it’s like to see them look at you as if you were the most disgusting, loathsome piece of rubbish in the world. Which is what you feel like when they say that you are an unfit-”

“GINNY, STOP!”

She paused in shock at his use of her given name and watched as he staggered away from her, his face contorted in pain. Sapien took several moments to collect himself, clutching the back of the couch to keep steady.

What…What’s wrong? What did I do to him?

“Should I call for someone?” Ginny asked with bated breath. “Do you need…?”

“No,” the older wizard finally said. He blinked to focus. “I-I am fine. Forgive me, Citizen Weasley. I fear it has been many years since I have…encountered a pain as fierce as yours, if I ever have. I was ill-prepared for it.”

Ginny struggled to understand what he was telling her.

“But you’ve been…Surely there have been people you’ve met that have been hurt before?”

“People hurt every day of their lives in some way: A crack on the head from standing too fast or a promotion given to someone else or even the loss of a spouse to the next life. I have grown quite accustomed to those pains. Your pain, though, it is the worst kind; the kind that takes years and years of training my powers to handle.”

“What kind is that?”

“Being betrayed by the one you love.” Carefully, Sapien lowered himself into one of Molly Weasley’s old armchairs. Ginny sat across from him on the coffee table, still troubled by the lack of color in his face as much as his words. “When we love someone, when we give every bit of our heart and soul to another, we give them the greatest power in the world over us. We live as they live and die as they die. Their joys are ours and their pain is bearable because they do not carry the burden of it alone. It is…a wonderful thing to know such a love, but it comes with a price.” His grave eyes met hers. “When the pain we feel is inflicted on us by them, it is magnified tenfold. How could they who we have devoted all our energies into making happy want to us see us suffer? There is no logic behind it, no sense at all. Even if the indiscretion was a momentary one that could be explained away, it makes no difference. All trust is destroyed because if they could hurt us in one instant, what is to stop them from ever doing it again?”

“That’s what Harry did to me,” Ginny concluded with a sigh, resisting the urge to get lost back in the memory of their awful fight.

“And you to him,” Sapien said gently.

It would be a waste of breath to deny it. Ginny had been raised never to be wasteful.

“Well, you’re the one who sees the future. Tell me, what does my son’s look like? Or mine?”

He smiled a little sadly.

“There are too many paths laid out before you both to guess. They depend on you, but also on others. You are at the mercy of choices of some you do not trust at this time. In many of them, there is pain for you.”

“Fine, but what about my child?” Ginny asked with trepidation.

“His future is in your hands alone. As you are beholden to others, he is beholden to you.”

“Lionel won’t take him,” she vowed. “I won’t let that happen.”

“I know that you will fight to your dying day to protect your child.”

It wasn’t an answer Ginny wanted. She had known that already, had since the first time the baby was put in her arms. She wanted Sapien to reassure her of her son’s future, to clear away its clouds so Ginny could retain whatever bits of her sanity she still had.

That would require getting what you want. You know that’s not what’s supposed to happen in your life.

“What about Harry’s future?” Ginny couldn’t help to ask, desperate to know something for sure, good or bad. “Can you…Do you see him ever coming back?”

“His futures match yours in number. Too many, all relying on his choices to take shape.”

He lightly squeezed her hand. “I believe your question is what place, if any, do you and your son have in Citizen Potter’s future.”

“I can’t even say if I want one or not. Anytime I let myself think of him, all I see are his eyes when he…” She laughed humorlessly and held back a tiny shiver. “I’ve been called worse things by worse people. Frequently. Especially during my Quidditch days. To hear Harry say what he did, it was just the first time I truly let myself see how much he hated me for all I’ve done to him over the last few years. He’ll never forgive me and I think I’m inclined to never want to forgive him for speaking that way about me in front of my son.”

“Words are powerful weapons, as I am sure you will attest to. They can strike us with the force of a spiked cudgel. They are also quite potent shields. The word ‘never’ is almost impenetrable. It leaves no room for any hint of darkness to creep back in, but it also leaves no room for light to shine through. Think long and hard before you attach that word to something as ever-changing as the future, Citizen Weasley.” With great care, Sapien rose to his feet and bowed his head to her. “I shall show myself out. Many blessings to you on this fine day.”

******

Ginny was still rooted to her spot at the coffee table, Sapien’s words washing over her in waves, when Bart and Nell walked in with the baby sometime later. She busied herself with settling him down for a nap while the Nixons admired her new home and preparing for what Bart had dubbed a Brainstorming Bonanza with Ron and Hermione.

“Okay,” Bart began as he, Nell, and Ginny squeezed next to each at the tiny kitchen table around a strange black square Ginny had never before. Bart lifted the top and Ginny saw a screen of some kind, like a smaller version of what one might find on those telephision things she had seen in Hermione’s parents’ home. The bottom part of it had rows of keys with letters, numbers, and shapes all across. “Let’s just connect with our friends and we’ll get started.”

“Explain to me again why we’re using this and not the Floo network?”

“Because, dear wife, I do not want to spend the rest of my day coughing up ash and soot, thank you very much. Thus, we are using my laptop that I do not get to play with nearly enough.” Bart’s fingers flew across the keys until the screen came to life.

A large picture of a beautiful young woman, draped in a long, billowy dress (split at her legs and stretched tightly along her bust) with brown hair styled in two buns on the side of her head greeted them.

“What is that?” Nell asked immediately.

“Nothing! J-Just that’s how the computer came. With that picture, exactly like that. Totally forgot it was on here.” Bart quickly started typing again under his wife’s stern gaze until the image disappeared. A series of whining bursts emerged from the device as Bart typed. Ginny inched away from it slowly.

“Is that thing safe to use?” Ginny asked, preparing herself to Apparate upstairs and get the baby out at the first sign of danger.

“Completely and one-hundred percent,” Bart promised over the noise. “These bad boys are mainstays in the Muggle world. People use them every day there, sometimes for sixteen or seventeen hours at a time. They use them for work or research or to play games on or to stay in touch with one another. These things can even control some of the massive weaponry Muggles have stored over the world. Basically, computers are to them what wands are to us: a tool for good that can be deadly in the wrong hands.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” Nell said.

“Not to worry, babe. We both know exactly how good my hands are, don’t we?” Bart leaned over and nibbled playfully at her neck while his wife half-heartedly ducked away.

“Can we get on with this please?” Ginny asked as politely as she could, shifting her chair a little away from them. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, begrudging her friends their happiness, and besides that, they were here for much more important business.

Only slightly chagrined, Bart finished typing on his laptop and the screen came to life. Amazingly, Ginny found herself staring into the face of Hermione.

“Hello everyone,” Hermione waved at them from what looked like her living room. “The kitchen looks very cozy, Ginny. Did you get the flatware set we sent you?”

Ginny nodded in a daze before she turned to Bart. “I can hear her perfectly. How did you do this? There has to be some sort of magic involved.”

“Just a little bit. For powering the computer, because there’s no outlets or electricity here, and in the clarity of the sound and picture. The laptop is fitted with something called a webcam.” He tapped a small dot in the center of the top of the computer. “Hermione has one on her computer so we can talk back and forth. Figured it was easier than everyone crowding in front of a fireplace or sending birds back and forth.”

“Huh, Muggles really like to go out of their way to make it easier on themselves,” Nell said. She waved at Hermione through the screen. “I love that bookcase you have in there. It goes great with the wallpaper.”

“Thank you.” Hermione smirked. “The hickey on your neck goes very nicely with your earrings.”

Taking his customary slap upside the head from his wife with stride, Bart said, “Alright, let’s get to work people. Where’s Ron?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “He’s in the kitchenette. He refuses to come in here.”

“Why not?”

“Yes, Ronald, please tell them why not!” Hermione shouted to her left.

“That camp otter has a web camera in it!” Ron’s voice cried out. “Do I need to remind any of you what lives in a web?! There’s no way you’re getting me near that thing!”

His wife smiled tightly into the screen. “Just so you all know, I blame the three of you. None of you stopped me from marrying him in Hastom.”

“Never mind that,” Ginny said impatiently. “Hermione, did that colleague you mentioned get anything from my memories? Anything that will help us in court?”

“I’m sorry,” Hermione shook her head. “It was just as I suspected when I looked at them myself last week. When you first started dating him, Lionel must have put some sort of spell on you that permanently corrupted your memories of him. You have full access to them in your mind and you’re free to say whatever you wish about him, but whenever they’re used for viewing in a Pensieve, everything in them becomes distorted. There isn’t anything in them that we can use. Nothing about his behavior or his insistence on the abortion or the contract and blackmail.”

“But isn’t the fact that memories have been tampered with proof enough that Lionel did something illegal?” Nell asked.

“No, because his lawyers can argue that it was Ginny herself who did something to them, to hide something unsavory about herself. I couldn’t find any traces of whatever spell or potion he used on your memories so there’s no way to prove that it was Lionel. I’m sorry, Ginny,” Hermione addressed her. “I know you were counting on being able to back up your verbal testimony against him, but there’s no legal way to do that with your memories.”

“What about the memories he extracted from Ginny that he returned to her?” Bart chimed in. “Ron, what did your team find?”

“Nothing,” he yelled back. “No fingerprints on the vial whatsoever, except for Gin’s. He probably uses a charm of some sort on his hands so he never leaves any. Shifty blighter like him, that sounds like something he’d do. We can’t show that he handled it in any way which means we can’t argue that he was using any kind of blackmail against Gin.”

Ginny nodded stoically. She had expected as much. Lionel was many horrible things, but he wasn’t a fool.

“Fine, I can’t prove what a bastard he is through my own experiences. What about others? Surely, considering all the witches he’s ever been linked to and all the ones he kept hidden away, I’m not the first woman he’s ever been with that’s gotten pregnant by him. Doesn’t matter how good a Keeper you have; fire enough balls at the hoops and one’s bound to go through eventually.”

“You’re more than likely right,” Hermione told her. “Our problem is finding someone with proof of that to present to the court. Nell, any luck finding a way into the records in Healer Smythe’s office? From what Ginny described about Lionel’s reaction, he’s probably used the man’s services before in regards to unplanned pregnancies.”

“No.” Nell paused and looked to her husband, who prompted her with a nod. “I’m, uh, sorry I didn’t say anything until now but, um, I actually was let go from the office.”

“What? When?”

Nell gave Ginny a sad smile. “About a month ago.”

In other words, when Ginny refused Lionel’s offer of marriage and the custody proceedings were set in motion.

“That rotten scoundrel,” Hermione groused form her living room. “He probably paid Smythe or threatened him in some way to prevent you from getting access to his files. What grounds did Smythe give you for your dismissal? We might be able to sue him for unlawful termination.”

“He only said that he was hiring someone with more experience and anyways, I never had a formal contract with his office. I was only used on an as-needed basis every month or so and I suppose I was no longer needed,” she tried to joke.

“Nell, you needed that job,” Ginny said, reaching over to take her friend’s hand. “How are you going to afford to provide care for everyone and still keep a roof over your own head?”

Not to mention you’re trying to start a family now, Ginny added to herself. Definitely not a good time to be short on Sickles.

It was just another blow from Lionel to Ginny. He truly must be devoting the majority of his days to thinking up new ways to torture her. Hurting her family seemed to be his favorite sport nowadays.

Nell squeezed her hand and smiled. “I’ll be fine. There are worse things in the world to not have than money.”

“We’ll make do,” Bart added. “Nothing shameful about growing your own produce or buying things secondhand. Worse comes to absolute worst, I can make a small fortune selling off some of my memorabilia.”

“Plus, it means I don’t have to work with anyone associated with slime like Dresden. It’s something I should have done months ago, Ginny. I just let myself worry too much about the money. Now I don’t have that problem anymore. Don’t fret over this at all.”

“Actually,” they heard Ron say, “they’re looking for someone to assist the Auror matron in the department. Not full-time, just someone to help in emergencies and with the quarterly physical evaluations. So longs as you don’t mind giving exams to blokes instead of birds, I’ll give them your name.”

“Oh Ron, that’s fabulous! I’d love it!”

“Love?” Bart wrinkled his eyes. “That’s the word you’re going to use to describe ogling other men’s toned and fit bodies? Really?”

Nell patted his cheek affectionately. “Do you know that loose floorboard in your office at the pub that you think I don’t know about and the magazines you keep in it?” Bart stiffened straight as an arrow. “Would you like me to keep pretending I don’t know about it?”

“Ron, you tell your buddies to get ready for my wife to put her hands all over them,” Bart called into the computer. “Now back to business. The name of the game is looking for ladies that Dresden has screwed over, correct?”

“Correct, and it’ll be easier said than done,” Hermione said. “A lot of these witches are going to be anonymous encounters. Lionel would be the only one who knows their identities and he will not be forthcoming about them.”

“The ones we have managed to find,” Ron added loudly, “the higher-profile ones either didn’t go through what you did, Gin, or refuse to talk about their relationship with him. We can’t force them to. There are no records of him fathering a child or of any woman he was with having a child within a year of things ending.”

“Same story from the guys I have looking into this in America,” Bart said. “Which leads me to believe it’s more a case of women going through with pregnancy termination.”

“Something you’ll never get to introduce in court without corroboration from the healer’s records,” Nell cut in.

“And those are only the voluntary ones.”

“Voluntary?” Ginny stared at Bart in confusion. “What do you mean?”

He glanced at the small, floating yellow orb next to the table. The Snitch’s tiny, even breathing could be heard through it easily, even as he slept upstairs.

“Lionel’s a potion master,” Bart answered slowly. “The best in the business, bar none. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that if he was with a girl unwilling to consider an abortion that he could brew something up on his own to slip to her. They may never even have suspected him of anything. If he played the role of supporting boyfriend for a couple of weeks and then she tragically had a miscarriage, why would she think twice about it? Especially if he Obliviated her afterwards. Even if they weren’t together, it wouldn’t have been that difficult to have her followed and when she left a drink or a bowl of soup alone to have someone…” Bart trailed off and Ginny had a pretty good idea why he did, if her face was giving away what she was thinking.

He could have been talking about me, she thought, shaking at the thought. That was probably Lionel’s plan all along, to convince me not to talk at first and then make me…make me…

The baby gave off a sneeze through the monitoring orb and Ginny tried to collect herself. Her son, it now seemed, had had to fight from the moment of his conception for his life and she’d do all she could to ensure it would be a happy one.

Far away from Lionel Dresden.

“W-What about Lionel’s mother?” Ginny asked after a moment. “He said he only came forward because she found out about the Snitch. Would she listen to me if I could talk to her?”

“Not likely,” Hermione said. “From all my research on her, Angelique Bedford-Dresden is devoted to her only child through and through. When her husband, Lionel’s father, left her when Lionel was a young boy, she used her own family’s considerable wealth to keep Dresden Draughts and Potions–what we now know as DDP–afloat until Lionel could assume control on his twenty-first birthday, eight years ago. She even financed all the freelance potion-making he did before then. Today, she still sits on DDP’s board, but Lionel is in charge of the day-to-day operations.”

“Not to mention the name ‘Bedford’ is a serious one in the American magical community,” Bart said. “A buddy of mine traced her genealogy back about a thousand years or so, when the family was still based in Europe. They have the same kind of sway over there in the States that a family like the Malfoys or the Blacks once had here. That family’s fortune has been growing as well. DDP is only a drop in the incredibly humungous bucket for the Bedfords.”

Ginny stood and circled her kitchen slowly. It barely took her six steps to make a full lap. “So basically,” she began, “I am asking a court to award me custody over a man beloved by the public, trusted by the governments of the world to craft potions for capturing criminals, and wealthy beyond any imagination using only my word that he is monster.” She looked back at the kitchen table. “Do I have that all right?”

“This is not hopeless,” Hermione tried to reassure her. “For one, we’re using the British courts, not the American ones. You’ll have just as much influence and recognition here as he does. There’ll be dozens of witnesses to testify what an excellent mother you are and we’ll have documented evidence from all the newspapers and magazines that if nothing else, Lionel clearly lives a lifestyle that’s not conducive to raising an infant. This is winnable, I promise you.”

“It’d be moot if you’d just let me and the boys have a go at him, Gin,” Ron said sincerely.

“Not this again…”

“You don’t think the five of us could convince him to drop this whole thing? Maybe even drop off the face of the Earth altogether?”

“I have no doubts that you could, Ronald. I do have doubts of you even being able to get your hands on him. He has protection around him all the time. He’s probably upped it even more because he thinks you lot will try something that stupid. All it’ll get you five is a row of cells in Azkaban. Look at your wife; is that really something you’re willing to do?”

“No one is talking seriously about doing something that rash and irresponsible,” Hermione said, enunciating every word for Ron. “We have a good case to make in court. We just have to trust that the judge will see that.”

The room became overbearingly claustrophobic then. “Excuse me,” Ginny said. She grabbed her coat and hurried out of the room. Luckily, she made it out and to the side of the house before she vomited all over the newly-finished yellow clapboards.

******

Later in the evening, as Ginny was alone in the house changing the baby’s diaper in his closet of a room, all of the facts and assumptions her little makeshift legal team had given her echoed in her ears and all of the possible outcomes laid forth ran through her mind:

She could go to court and let a judge declare her unfit.

She could let her brothers try to maim Lionel into signing away his rights, signing their own life sentences in jail as they did.

She could marry Lionel and stay trapped in her own prison cell for who knows how many years, until the esteemed Angelique Bedford-Dresden died.

Or she could put her faith in the law to be unbiased; to see past all of Lionel’s wealth and let Ginny come home to the safety of Hastom with her child.

Weren’t you supposed to stop believing in fairy tales as a child, Ginevra?

That left only one course of action. One so drastic that she had dared not voice it to anyone, less she entangle them in the web of disaster that was surely to follow it.

It’s the safest way, though, she thought, unfastening the Snitch’s nappy distractedly. The best way to make sure Lionel never gets him. There’s too many variables any other way and too many risks to-

A warm stream of liquid splashed against Ginny’s neck and she recoiled in shock.

“Oh bloody hell!” Ginny cried, gagging at the unmistakable feel of urine coating her as the flow slowly petered out. Cleaning her shirt as best she could with a quick Scourgify, she leaned down over the changing table, glaring at her innocent-looking son. “Really, young man? Mummy doesn’t have enough to deal with? Now she has to worry about whether or not you’re going to wee all over her?”

The baby tried to lift his foot to his mouth, giving his mother a wide grin of delight. All of Ginny’s annoyance evaporated in an instant at the beautiful sight. Giggling madly to herself, she lifted the baby above her head.

“Is that all it would’ve have taken for a smile from you? A little bit of a golden shower? Well, I wished you would have told me sooner,” she cooed, kissing his soft belly. His laugh buoyed her sinking spirits and she lowered him back down to the table to finish latching on his nappy. “If that’s what you need to feel happy, then please feel free to wee over Mummy whenever you want to. You won’t hear another complaint from me.”

The Snitch answered with a messy raspberry of glee and while Ginny gazed down in wonder at his innocence, her resolve hardened to stone. She knew what had to be done now and she’d do it without any second thoughts.

They would leave and hide where no one could find them. Ever.

Just because it was an easy decision to make didn’t mean it was an uncomplicated one. It would mean most likely never seeing her parents or her brother again; never staying in one place for too long to avoid detection; living in disguise with a false name the rest of her life; possibly given up magic all together and living in the Muggle world so as not to become conspicuous.

Uncomplicated, it was definitely not. But worth it if it allowed her to keep him safe at her side.

It would take planning, though. And time. She would need to gather as much money together as she could and decide on her first destination. There were only a few weeks until the hearing. That would be her deadline.

If it looks, by some miracle, like it’ll go well, then nothing has to happen. If it looks like the judge will give Lionel custody, then we’ll leave before he can.

Ginny leaned down and brushed her nose against the baby’s.

“Let’s put you down for bed, sweetheart. Mummy has to start getting some things ready for us.”

Before she could go any further into her idea, there was a knock on the front door. Fastening his clothes back on, she settled him back in his crib with a quick kiss and hurried downstairs, activating the Monitoring Charm as she did. Still absorbed in her plans, she hardly gave a thought to who would be calling on her at this time of night.

Ginny wished she had. Then she might have been prepared to see Harry at her doorstep.

His eyes bored into hers. The brilliant emerald in them had almost always been her undoing, ever since she was ten and had seen them at her mother’s table. They were impossible to look away from. If she had, she would have noticed the dark circles around them and the scruff around his thin cheekbones or the slight tremor in his hands. As it was, all she saw were his eyes and all she heard in her mind was one word over and over again:

Grffyinwhore.

She didn’t dare imagine what words Harry was hearing as he looked at her.

By the time she realized how long they had been standing in the open door across from each other, their shared silence wrapping around them like a tight band, the biting February air had brought goose bumps all along the flesh of her bare arms.

“Hi,” he finally whispered.

“Hi”? That’s all he can come up with is “Hi”?!

Although given the state of their affairs, perhaps it was good that at least something could be said between them.

“Hi,” Ginny tried the word out for herself. It tasted…strange.

Harry, it seemed, hadn’t thought much past his feeble greeting. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but no sound came out. The urge to slam the door in his face rose up, swift and fierce, especially with that horrid chant from her nightmare pounding against her skull. Ginny wasn’t sure if she’d be able to handle hearing any more words come out of his mouth.

What if this is your last chance, though? What if you don’t see him before the hearing and you have to…?

“Would you like to come inside, Harry?” She edged away from the door and gave him room to pass. He stayed stock still on the steps, not moving an inch.

Well, you gave him a choice. Now it’s all on him to turn and leave. Probably best if he does, you have a lot of things to arrange before-

Quickly, without looking at her face, Harry brushed beside her into the house, shoving his hands deep into his pockets when he was over the threshold.

“Thank you,” he murmured to her carpet.

“You’re welcome,” she replied to the door as she closed it.

She turned back to him and saw him looking around her new home. The walls were still bare. Ginny supposed she’d just leave them like that now. No point in trying to pick out a color she actually liked.

“Why didn’t you build by the lake?” Harry asked suddenly. “On your land?”

“Because it’s your land.” Ginny leaned back against the door and folded her arms chest.

“I sold it to you.”

“You sold it to a friend. I didn’t think that’s what I was any more.” Her honesty was bold, even by her standards, but what was the point of not being truthful anymore? It wasn’t like she’d have to worry what he thought of her soon enough.

The feeling of such freedom should have been liberating. So why did it feel plain bloody awful?

Harry finally worked up his own courage to look at her and she started a bit when she noticed that behind the green of his eyes–his perfect to perfection eyes–there was…nothing.

No light. No anger. No warmth. No ice.

Just nothing at all.

“I’m sorry…for the things I said the last time we…” Harry struggled to apologize. “They were untrue and, um, I know they were hurtful for you to hear and-”

“You said I was a whore,” she reminded him, her tone flat and lifeless. “That I was a lying slut and an unfit mother who nearly murdered her child.”

“I did.” Harry blinked and swallowed. Something looked to be trying to break free across his features but he kept a tight hold on it. “I shouldn’t have, especially in front of the b-baby like that. It was the last thing you should have heard after what you had been through that day already.”

“So why did you say it?”

“I don’t…I know that you were…What you did after we broke up, none of that was any of my-”

“Harry, I don’t give a damn about that part! I mean…” She took a breath and tried to articulate her thoughts, the thoughts she was only now just beginning to understand herself. “There’s unfortunately some truth to that part about my…” Ginny grimaced and fidgeted, keeping her eyes as from his as she could. “I was just... A part of me just hurt so badly and I needed a way to escape all the guilt I had about how I treated you after I ended things. Some people drink or take draughts or fly their brooms into volcanos and icy water for the thrill of it for an escape. I…numbed myself with meaningless sex.”

“Ginny…” Harry murmured painfully.

“So yes, I was all those things you said and that’s how I stumbled into Lionel’s path a-and that’s why I let him control the way he did. You weren’t wrong about any of that, Harry.” She forced her eyes back to his and asked the question that had plagued her for weeks. “But how could you think I was a horrible mother? How could you think that Lionel would be better for him than me?”

“I don’t.”

“You said-”

“I read the interview Dresden gave in the paper, after I put the Snitch down for his nap,” Harry broke in, taking a step closer to her. Ginny glued her back to the door as he kept speaking. “For a long time, I just stared down at the words. I didn’t even see them after I read it. Just his face that god-awful picture, smirking without a care or a conscience. Then it became your face I saw, your face all those times I asked you about the baby’s…his biological father and how you used the fact that we were growing closer to either not answer the question or to lie outright to my face. That lead to remembering all those months, years really, I spent trying to figure out what I had done wrong the first time, why you had really left me. The whole time you were…well, escaping as you put it,” a painful snort left his lips and the grip he had on his emotions slipped a little, “for l-l-lying to me, I spent it seeing how happy you were without me. All of that was in my head so that by the time you walked in the door, I just…Ginny, I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry in my entire life. At anyone.”

She almost wanted to ask if that included Voldemort, but she was terrified of the answer.

“I knew that the pregnancy wasn’t planned, but I had no idea that you had considered…ending it like you almost did. Y-You have every right to that choice, don’t get me wrong. When you told me, though, all I saw was the Snitch, sucking on that bottle I had just given him and blinking up at me with…with that he look he gets when he’s eating. You know that one?” Harry smiled a little. “Like Ron would get at school when the Halloween tables were filled. So happy but kind of disappointed at the same time because even though he’s eating, he knows it’ll end soon? You know that look, right?”

“Yeah,” Ginny said, thinking of her son’s happy face and how Harry used to stare at him at night when he nursed. “Of course I do.”

“When you, um, told me about almost…almost…” Harry stepped back and collected himself, “my mind just put the baby in my head. All I was thinking was he almost didn’t exist; that there was an instant–a small instant in time–when he almost didn’t get to be born to make faces and spit up on the back of the couch and…and fall so dead asleep on someone’s shoulder that you couldn’t even shrug or he’d wake up screaming like a banshee. It wasn’t rational and it certainly wasn’t fair to you or what you had gone through.” The earnestness on his face took her breath away. “You’re an amazing mother, Ginny. Everything you do with him and for him shows that and I’m so, so sorry that what I said that day made you doubt that for even a second.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “And…And I’m sorry, too. For all the lies that I told you and for yelling at you at that…that way. We were both awful to each other.”

“Yes, we were.”

So let’s start again, her subconscious screamed with the joy of a carefree girl, stunning her. Let’s start again! Work out a way to beat Lionel and have a life together, all three of us! A brand new Golden Trio!

She was battling so hard to rein in her intemperate thoughts that she almost missed his next words.

“Hermione says that the case–your custody, that is–it’s going well? You can beat him in court?”

“Oh…uh, she’s, um, Hermione’s working very hard on it,” Ginny told him. “The hearing’s set for…for March 11th.” Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, “Will you be there? In the courtroom? You could testify, even.” Hope bubbled inside her, surprising her because she had almost forgotten what it felt like. “Harry Potter would certainly hold some sway with-”

“I can’t.” The deflation in her stomach nearly took her off her feet. “Not that…Not that I don’t want to,” he added hastily. “I do want to. Very much, and of course I’d tell the court what a good mother you are and how well the baby’s doing with you-”

“Then why can’t you?”

The mask of detachment that had fallen from his face slid back on effortlessly. “Do you remember a few months ago, I told you about an international task force of Aurors? One that would go after war criminals and terrorists?”

A vague conversation from the day she had first watched Teddy alone, when the little monkey had nearly torn the house in half, came back to her and she nodded slowly.

“Well, after a lot of thought, I decided to join it after all. I’ll be in training for it until I leave the first week of April.” His words took on a tone of forced cordiality. “Secluded training, away from the public so I-I can’t be there for the hearing. I’m sorry for that, but I already sent Hermione a letter saying that I’ll give a deposition on your behalf and maybe that will-”

“You’ll be gone eight years,” Ginny remember out loud. Her heart drummed faster and faster in her chest. “Isn’t that what you said? Eight years of nonstop service to build strong cases and to try suspects?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, nodding. “That’s right.”

“Why would you do that?” She left the safety of the door to walk closer to him. “Why would you just up and leave all the people…all the people who love you like that?”

“It wasn’t an easy decision. I’ve given it a lot of thought and-”

“You’ve talked to Teddy about this? Because I think he’d have a problem not seeing you for eight whole years. Same with Ron and Hermione and Nell and Bart and…and…”

ME! Me, Harry! Did you think about me?! About not seeing me…

Ginny sank down onto the couch at the realization. Of course he had thought about not seeing her for eight whole years. That was probably the task force’s biggest selling point. No more having to look at the lying, cruel Grffyinwhore for quite a long time.

But to give up seeing everyone he loved because of her? That wasn’t right! It wasn’t right for him or anyone else! Especially considering that she was going to…

You can’t tell him, she thought instantly. You can’t say a word. He’d be required by law to report you if you told him and then you wouldn’t be able to stop Lionel from taking the baby.

DO NOT SAY A WORD, GINEVRA!


“There are vile, evil wizards in this world. Ones who dominate and kill the weak for a few years of power or wealth or any other nonsense,” she heard Harry explain over her sinking heart. “I can’t just stand by distracted anymore while I have the ability to do real good. What would our world have been like if people in the Order had done that when Voldemort was alive? People like Dumbledore and Snape and your parents? How many others are out there, waiting for someone strong to come and save them?”

Ginny had the crazy idea to smack him upside the head, like Nell did to Bart when he said or did something completely out of bounds. Didn’t Harry understand that he had given up his life once to save the world from evil? He was under no obligation to do it again, certainly not so he could avoid her. His sense of martyrdom was endearing only to a point; then it became a terrible, annoying burden for more than just Harry to bear.

“So…So you’ve signed on the dotted line and everything? You absolutely have to do this?”

“It won’t be binding until the day I leave for my first assignment. Then there’s no way to get out of it.”

“What did Hermione and Ron say when you told them?”

“They…I just told them a little while ago. They just need time to adjust, that’s all. Everyone will eventually. They’ll see how important this is to me.”

“But are you positive this is what you want for the next eight years?” Ginny stood and asked him. “If you do this, think of all the things you’ll miss: Teddy, the work you do here, your friends, your friends’ children. Nell’s trying to get pregnant as we speak and surely Hermione and Ron won’t be far behind. Don’t miss all that, Harry.” It was already bad enough that Ginny was going to. “You…You could even try and find Meredith,” she added, desperate to find some reason for him to stay. “I’m sure that she’d-”

Harry blanched and ran a hand down his face. “I’m not getting back together with Meredith. Not ever. I just…Marriage and children aren’t for me, Gin,” he said in a rush.

Ginny wanted to shake his shoulders until his head fell off. “Please don’t say that! You w-were wonderful with me and the baby when we came from the hospital. Even without any sleep and with me and him crying for all hours you were happy. I saw that. I saw how you were with him and-”

“I’m not his father.”

Why, oh why did you let him inside? You were not ready for this conversation. You knew that and you still let him in to say all these things to you. What a fool you are, Ginevra.

He continued slowly in a hushed voice in the face of her silence. “What we were doing all those weeks, hell for those months when we lived together…It wasn’t right. It wasn’t real.” Harry’s eyes locked onto a freckle on the side of her cheek but Ginny noticed only the words coming out of his mouth. “It was us playing house because there was so much that felt unfinished about how things ended for us, on both our parts. We let it…feel more real than it was because where we were in our lives wasn’t a happy place, for either of us, and we just wanted to forget about all that for a little while. All the things we thought we were feeling for each other was an illusion and we just got caught up in it.

“Now, though, we have to let it go and move on with our lives. I have to put my energy into keeping the world safe from Dark magic and you…” He squeezed her cold hands tightly, “you have to focus on being the best mother in the world to your boy; on being free and happy so he’ll grow up to be happy, too.” Harry took a step back, but didn’t let go of her hands, his jaw clenching. “I can…I know Ron said you didn’t want anyone going to confront Lionel, that you wanted everything to be done legally, but…I know that I can force that son of a bitch to sign away his rights if you-”

“It’s not your job,” Ginny said dully, wishing she had the will to remove her hands from Harry’s and fighting with everything in her to keep her tears at bay. “Like you said, it’s all an illusion and I won’t have you risk your job or your freedom for an illusion.” She sniffed as softly as she could. “Hermione will do her job well and my son will be fine.”

“O-Okay.” Slowly, Harry let her hands fall out of his and she folded them underneath her arms to keep from grabbing back at him. “I’ll…I’ll just go.”

He was already at the door when a thought occurred to her.

“Don’t you want to say goodbye to the Snitch?” Ginny had to ask. For all the pain he had caused her, a part of her thought he was at least owed that much.

“No.” His small words were so quiet she barely heard them. “No, I don’t want to.” The door opened and a rush of cold air hit her back. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

As soon as the door shut, Ginny unsteadily began walking back upstairs to her son. She needed to see his sweet face right then, desperately.

It was what she had wanted for all these weeks, for things to be settled and ended between her and Harry for good so she could put all her concentration back where it belonged, on the baby.

Yet, now that it was over and done with, why did she curse herself for wishing it in the first place?
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