Disclaimer: All characters and plotlines contained within are not mine, they belong to JK Rowling and the Harry Potter Series.
It was as he stood looking into the face of his newest—and only redheaded—child that he realized that red hair had surrounded him since his birth like a warm, comforting blanket. Indeed, the darkest points of his life had been the only ones without a ginger somewhere close to him.
His mother had been a redhead, and though he couldn't remember, he rather assumed that the first year of his life, the only year of his life when his parents had been alive, had been a pleasant one. At any rate, it was certainly more pleasant than the following ten years, spent with the mundane and cruel Dursley family.
And even when the half-giant Hagrid had released him from that closet cage, Harry wasn't comfortable. Happy, perhaps, relieved, certainly, and more than a little surprised that he was a wizard of all things, a wizard, but not happy. He was too overwhelmed then, by information and new school things, and he was still fundamentally alone.
When he saw the Weasley family, though, he realized that everything might be alright. In a foreign world, the sight of five children, all with a vivid, startling shade of red hair, trundling off across the station after their plump matriarch was comfortingly normal. Mrs. Weasley, with all of her motherly tutting, Percy's importance, the twin's joking, Ginny's embarrassment, and especially Ron's lazy smile made Harry feel that he was seeing and becoming part of a real family at last. And throughout the hard years to follow, the signature Weasley red hair was his constant companion, most commonly found in Ron, but just as equally seen in his brothers and sister. And when summers came to an end, he looked forward to seeing a cheerful jolt of red almost as much as returning to the magical world.
And later, when Ginny had become less of a sister and more of a girl, he was glad in some deep, hidden part of him that the girl to capture the famous heart of the famous boy was a redhead. Perhaps boys really do marry their mothers, or perhaps it was simply Ginny, and it wouldn't have mattered if she were blonde or brunette, but at least he knew he wouldn't spend more time without the warm flare of red.
Seventh year was hard on all of them, but when Ron stormed out, when he lost his red, that was when the trouble truly started. That was the darkest time of that year, perhaps of his life. Stuck in the same tent for months on end, with a broken-hearted girl too shattered to hold a proper conversation, that was the point at which he felt the most like giving up. Who cared if Voldemort triumphed after all? At least then, it would all be over. And thus, when he dived into a freezing pond practically naked, it was knowing that he might not survive and hardly caring. But then, miracle of miracles, the red came back, bursting past in a fiery comet to save him in the last moments of his life. And while he suspected that he should be as angry with Ron as Hermione was, somehow, he didn't care. He had his lucky charm back, and he knew that everything would be alright.
And after it was all over, after things would never be alright again, he married a redhead, and cemented his happy future.
And now he was here, gazing down at the wrinkled, beautiful face of his youngest child, his only girl, his very own ginger.
And so he smiled, turned to his exhausted wife, and said one word.
"Lily."
And Ginny smiled back, and murmured, "Your mother was a redhead, too."
But he already knew that.
And now he had a full set of redheads: parent, friend, spouse, child.
And as long as he had a ginger in his life, all would be well.
