Ginny’s eyes widened as the words slipped from her mouth. In her grogginess, it had seemed like the perfect moment to tell Draco, as he was tenderly touching her stomach as if he just knew.

His eyes widened as hers bored into them, waiting for a response.

“What was she like as a baby?”

Oh, please, she thought, just let it be okay.

“You’re…you’re…” he stuttered, his face still unreadable to her.

“Pregnant,” she finished, hanging on his every breath.

The longer he took to say something, the more she realized how inopportune her timing was. He had finally, after months of silence and sulking and scotch, revealed the demons that haunted him. Ginny would be lying to herself if she said the truth had not shaken her—he had showed her things that she hadn’t really thought about in decades. Yes, Fred flashed through her mind every day, but the horrors of the war had not been present with her constantly as they had been with him.

And now that she had finally revealed this news of a baby to him, she was hit full force by all the insecurities she had been struggling with since she herself had found out. She had spent weeks letting them eat at her insides until she felt her anxious secret would just simply burst from her.

It had only been a few seconds, but it felt like hours to her before his face split into the brightest smile she had ever seen from him.

“Gin…” he whispered, drawing her to him in a fierce hug on the bed. His voice was completely breathless, like she had knocked all the air from his lungs. “A baby…That’s amazing.”

She could feel his heart pounding rapidly as he embraced her, and tears welled up in her eyes. His hand still rested on her stomach, squeezed between their hug.

And in that moment she knew: this child would be exactly what they needed. It was equally Malfoy and Weasley, and he or she would be raised that way. She could picture Draco holding his child as he never had with Lily, teaching him or her how to talk or read or ride a broom. When the baby was born, all four siblings, never mind their surname, would hold him or her. Their baby would be raised just as much James’s sibling as Scorpius’s—loved by both sides from the start.

This baby meant hope for her family. It might be messy and dysfunctional and completely insane, but now they had a chance to be a whole family.

The rest of the summer passed in a blur for Ginny. She and Lily went to Harry’s on Fridays to pick up James and Albus and take them out for the afternoon. She used her old contacts to get box seats at a Quidditch match one weekend and took them to the park for a picnic the next, always trying to find things she knew they loved.

James still seemed shaken by the incident with Scorpius; he was never anything less than polite to her or Lily. Toward the end of July, when the four of them were in Diagon Alley licking their dripping ice cream cones, he tentatively asked, “Is Scorpius doing all right?”

Before Ginny could answer, Lily put her hand on her brother’s shoulder and grinned. “He’s doing great.”

James nodded, blowing out a shaky breath. Ginny reached over and ruffled his hair, pride swelling in her chest.

She knew, as they moved into August, that she needed to tell her children about her pregnancy. She had passed the four-month mark, and it was becoming impossible to hide her distinctly rounded stomach beneath flowing sundresses.

“Can we tell them, please?” Draco begged one night before bed, tugging his shirt over his head.

Ginny laughed softly. She knew how hard it had been for him to keep the baby a secret from Lily and Scorpius. She had never seen Draco so happy. At night they would crawl into bed together and he would pull her close and tell her everything he wanted to do with their baby. His eyes would light up when he talked about going to buy the child’s first broomstick or how he thought they should read to him or her at night. Ginny thought that he was even more excited about this possibility of family than she was.

She pulled a brush through her hair and shook her head at him. “Not yet.”

He slid between the sheets and shot her a pouting look.

“What are you waiting for?” he whined.

She sighed, plopping down on the bed beside him. She knew before she told the children she had to tell Harry. It was the right thing to do; she couldn’t even imagine the backlash if he heard the news from the kids. When she had first told Harry about Draco on that night she got back from Prague, he had reacted in a manner Ginny would have never thought possible of him. His blind rage had stuck a toe over the line into violence, and more than anything, she feared that happening again. Who would pay the price if she didn’t handle this maturely? Her sons? Was it possible that Harry could let his anger possess him so much that he would somehow harm their children? Or would he turn James and Albus against their new sibling? Ginny didn’t know.

She looked up at Draco, her fingers playing nervously with the hem of her camisole, and tried to find the right words to tell him that. She knew how much he resented Harry’s presence in their lives, and she didn’t want to rub that in his face—especially not now, after nearly two months of uninterrupted happiness.

“I…I just think that maybe…” she stalled, and she knew her hesitance was not doing her any favors. It only made this look like a bigger deal than it was. “I think that before I tell the kids I should tell Harry.”

Predictably, his face hardened slightly. He turned away for a moment, trying to hide it, but she had seen the bitterness before he could recover. She reached out and put her hand on his chest.

“Draco, he needs to hear it from me,” Ginny told him softly. “That is the mature, adult way to handle this. Imagine if Albus and James came home one day and just told him.”

He closed his eyes and breathed hard through his nose, but she could tell he knew she was right. Ginny laid her head down on his chest, took his hand, and placed in on her stomach.

“This is how our baby deserves to come into the world,” she whispered against his skin. She believed that, she really did. Maybe some part of her was being dramatic, her fears ramped up by hormones, but this is what she felt she had to do.

He nodded slightly and kissed the top of her head, and she knew that was the best she would get out of him tonight. She would tell Harry, and then they would share the news with their family.

The house, Ginny remembered, was especially beautiful in the summer. Hydrangeas bloomed all around the porch, and the large elm cast the home in forgiving shadow. She looked up and counted windows from the right; the third was where she used to sleep. For fifteen years, it had been where she slept—where they slept.

Shaking herself slightly, Ginny took a deep breath and started to climb up the steps of the porch. It was unnerving to walk into a place to which you didn’t belong but that had been home for so long.

She paused just before the door, running through her thoughts once more before knocking. She had scheduled this meeting of sorts three days prior, making sure the boys would be at Ron and Hermione’s with their cousins so they wouldn’t witness any ugliness between their parents. She didn’t plan to stay long.

Just tell him, deal with his reaction, and leave. She repeated the plan to herself twice more. She hoped his reaction was not as terrible as she had dealt with in the past. A small part of her wished she had brought along Draco for that reason, but she knew that would have only made things worse.

Her dress was a little snug across her stomach, unlike the looser ones she’d taken to wearing lately. There was just a hint of pregnancy in her appearance, enough that he could suspect just before she told him.

Her fist was knocking on the door before she could stop it. The door swung open almost immediately to a face she recognized but didn’t expect.

“Susan?” Ginny stammered.

Susan Bones stood in the doorway of her old home, smiling politely, but Ginny caught a smug edge to the way the other woman was looking at her.

“Hullo, Ginny,” she turned, holding the door open a little wider. “Come in.”

She stood there, frozen for a second, not even registering what the other woman had said. What was Susan Bones doing at her house? Well, her old house. Especially when she had taken steps to make sure just she and Harry would be involved in this conversation.

Susan cleared her throat, and Ginny’s mind snapped back into focus. She gave Susan a wavering smile and stepped over the threshold. She tried not to notice that Susan’s gaze lingered at her midsection.

The other woman looked good for their age. Of course, Ginny reminded herself, she did too when she wasn’t pregnant. But Susan was tall and lean, her skin golden from the summer sun, and her sleek brown hair was cropped chicly around her face.

“Harry?” Susan called sweetly, leading Ginny into the kitchen. “Ginny’s here.”

“Be right down!” he shouted from the bathroom at the top of the stairs. It was unsettling that she knew exactly which room he was in from the sound of his voice.

“You look…well,” Susan said, still wearing that overly polite smile.

Ginny nodded. “You too,” she managed to get out.

“Lemonade?” Susan asked, reaching for the pitcher on the table—the etched one Ginny had picked out three years before.

Ginny swallowed roughly, only able to shake her head. She leaned back against the kitchen counter, staring fixedly at the doorway, willing Harry to come down and relieve her of this awkwardness.

She couldn’t imagine what Susan was doing here. Were she and Harry friends? She knew he was seeing someone, but Susan had gotten married to a Muggle only a few years out of Hogwarts. Was she here often? Did she spend time with Ginny’s sons?

Ginny’s mouth was dry and it was getting hard to swallow. Her cheeks were starting to burn, and there was a bitter, metallic taste she wished she could get rid of, but she couldn’t very well ask for lemonade now.

“Ginny.”

Her eyes snapped up at the sound of his voice, short and hard. He wasn’t looking her up and down, as Susan had, but right in the face with a gaze so intense it made her shiver internally.

“Hello, Harry,” she replied, lifting her chin as Lily would in such a situation.

At first glance, he looked casual. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of Muggle jeans, and he wore a faded green t-shirt. But she could see every thought and insecurity he had about this meeting nestled into his appearance, just as she had for the last twenty years.

There was a little water sprinkled across his shirt, and she knew that meant he had splashed his face in the sink before coming down, which he was prone to do when he got anxious.

The shirt was one she used to sleep in, and she knew he had chosen it deliberately, probably after trying on others she had bought for him. And he was barefoot, which he knew she loved.

In three seconds she saw right through his front, and somehow, that settled her nerves.

“Did you want some lemonade?” he asked, shoving his hand through his hair.

“I would love some,” Ginny said clearly, pulling a chair out and taking a seat at the table. Susan shot her a dirty look.

Harry poured her a glass and sat down across from her, folding his hands in front of him on the table. Susan slid a hand over his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Ginny tried hard not to narrow her eyes.

Harry cleared his throat. “Er…Susan? Would you mind, um, going into the backyard for a little bit?”

Susan wrinkled her nose for a moment but recovered quickly. “Sure,” she complied, rubbing his shoulder before slipping out the backdoor.

The silence that fell in her absence was thick and heavy, filled with memories and things unsaid. Ginny took another sip of her lemonade, waiting for him to say something, but he was staring determinedly at the table, tracing circles with his finger.

“So what did you want to talk about?” he asked, still not looking up at her.

Ginny raised her eyebrows at him. “Well, what’s Susan doing here?”

His eyes darted up at the mention of Susan. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck, and made a little grimace. She wondered if he had really thought she wouldn’t ask.

“You look good Gin,” he said finally, the words coming out on the breath of a sigh. When she didn’t say anything, he leaned forward and clasped his hands on the table in a nervous gesture again. “Susan’s the woman I’m seeing.”

Ginny sucked in her lower lip and gave him a hard look. “Isn’t she married?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “That never stopped you,” he snapped.

Anger welled in her so rapidly it bubbled into rage, and she moved to stand up and smack him right across his self-righteous face. How dare he? Did he bring this married woman into his home simply to get back at her? He had exposed their children to adultery and pettiness simply in the name of revenge. She opened her mouth to spew all of this at him, but he held up a hand to stop her.

“I’m sorry,” he stated evenly. “That was uncalled for. Truthfully, no, Ginny, she’s not married. She left her husband about a year and a half ago.”

He looked so dejected at the mention of a woman leaving her husband, Ginny couldn’t help but wind down. She was in no position to call Susan an adulterer, even if she was one, all things considered. She nodded at him grudgingly.

“And she’s never around when the boys are,” he added quickly. He sounded almost eager, like he wanted her approval, and it made Ginny’s heart ache a little. “I want things to be serious when I introduce them to someone.”

“That’s good, Harry,” she replied softly. He nodded, suddenly looking exhausted. She felt so old in that moment, reflecting on how she was pregnant with her fourth child, working at her second marriage, and talking about his current girlfriend with a boy she had once loved with a force so strong it made her head spin.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and Ginny thought maybe he was reflecting on their lives too. Even though they weren’t even forty yet, it felt like they had lived enough to fill a dozen lifetimes. Their Hogwarts years seemed like someone else’s life entirely.

Harry cleared his throat, breaking Ginny from reminiscing. “So…um…what are you doing here?”

Ginny drained the remainder of her lemonade and stood up. She gripped the back of her chair and looked at Harry plainly. There is no easy way to tell him this. Just get it out.

“I’m pregnant, Harry.”

His eyes widened, immediately falling to her stomach.

She gripped the chair more tightly to keep herself from touching her bulge self-consciously. He opened his mouth to say something but snapped it shut again almost immediately.

When he didn’t look like he was going to say anything, Ginny continued, “The kids don’t know yet, not even Lily. I wanted you to hear it from me.”

He finally tore his gaze away and took to staring at the table, breathing hard through his nose. “When are you due?” he asked, and Ginny winced, hearing the bitter edge to his softly uttered words.

“January.”

He blew out a sigh shaking with unexpressed emotion and brought his hands to his face. Ginny had the urge to take a step backward, fearing his reaction.

He finally pulled his hands down from his face, rubbing vigorously under his eyes for a moment, and directed his words at the table. “Ginny, I am appreciative you came to tell me. I would love to say that I’m happy for you right now.”

Each of his words were slow and deliberate, grasping on to the last shreds of control he had. There was a long pause, and when he finally looked up at her, his eyes were glazed and burning green.

“But I lost a daughter this year. So right now I just can’t see the silver lining to your news.”

Author notes: Reviews have always been and will always be extremely appreciated.