It had been nearly five years since Hermione had seen the youngest Weasley and seven years since Ginny had done something that nobody thought was possible for her, the die-hard Quiddich fanatic and hex extraordinaire, gave up the magic world.

She had fallen in love with a muggle girl and decided to make a life with her outside of magic. They had met during the year that Hermione, Ron and Harry had been wandering the countryside in search of the means to end the war and Ginny had been left to the horrors that was Hogwarts. The Carrows had captured a muggle girl and was intent on using her as 'target practise' for the students. Ginny spent her entire time not only protecting the students but also protecting Laura, the muggle that had been kidnapped. The fiery redhead would take as much punishment as she could and would often step in front of spells and hexes to protect the young woman and when she was unsuccessful, she would spend her time healing the girl and getting to know her. It turned out that Laura was nineteen and was in her first year at university, she had been leaving the library late one evening when she had been kidnapped. She did not mind that magic existed, what bothered her most was how so much power could corrupt someone into thinking that they were superior.

Laura's time at Hogwarts was long and painful, but Ginny made up for a lot of the terror, the two found themselves growing closer and closer and when a way to send her back home safely had been found Laura refused, insisting that she would stay to help and be with her friend, even if she didn't have a single magical bone in her body.

After the battle of Hogwarts, everybody expected Ginny to fall into Harry's waiting arms and to be swept off her feet, finally getting who she wanted and what she deserved. Instead she turned to the bloodied and bruised muggle, who had stayed by her side and was helping bandage up the wounded and kissed her with as much passion that anybody had ever seen. Everybody was shocked and nobody paid attention to the heartbroken brunette who had never told her redheaded friend how she really felt for fear of rejection and loyalty to Harry, who had made everyone aware that he had some sort of claim to the youngest Weasley.

Ginny had stayed as long as she had needed to make sure that everything at Hogwarts was mended and she grieved for her family and friends along with everybody else. When she felt that it was time to move on, she and Laura took a floo to Diagon Alley and never stepped foot in the magical world again.

All of her friends and family had received invites to her wedding and were under strict instructions that it was to be purely muggle and they even had to find muggle modes of transport, most were happy to abide by these rules and her wedding to Laura was a lovely day filled with happiness and love. They had also received similar invites to the hospital after Laura had given birth to their son, again they respected her wishes and they all, except for Harry and Ron who were away working, descended upon the hospital to welcome the new born into the world.

That had been the last time Hermione had seen Ginny, nearly five years ago and now here she stood on the doorstep, shifting nervously from one foot to the other, waiting for someone to answer her knock. She had waited a long time to visit the redhead and now that she was there she was unsure if she would be welcome. The door to the townhouse opened and there stood Laura, Ginny's wife, the woman who unintentionally took Ginny away from her heritage and from Hermione. Hermione didn't blame Laura though, she was a lovely woman who had a few times tried to get Ginny back into the world of magic, but Ginny was stubborn and did not want her wife or son to be in a world that had caused too much physical and emotional pain for them both.

'Hermione, it is you, isn't it?' Laura asked.

'Hi.' Hermione said quietly.

'Come in, come in. God it's been such a long time, what brings you here?' smiling, Laura beckoned Hermione to follow her into the house. 'Ginny isn't home yet. She should be along soon though she's just picking Luke up from nursery.'

'How is he?' Hermione asked, genuinely interested. The first and last time she had seen the little boy was just after he had been born.

'Fine, he's getting big. It's been a while since you've seen him. He's four now and is such a terror, Ginny just says she's glad I had him, she couldn't imagine what he would be like if he was a little wizard as well.'

'Oh, he has no magic at all?' This surprised Hermione, she knew that Laura had carried Luke, but she was sure that they had performed a conception spell so that he was biologically Ginny's as well.

'Not from the tests that she ran when he turned one. It was one of the reasons we did everything the, what do you call it again, muggle?' Hermione nodded at this. 'Yeah, it's why she insisted on the muggle way, with me carrying and an anonymous donor, least chance of magic that way.'

'Wow, she really wants to separate herself,' murmured Hermione.

'Can you blame her? I've told her that I don't mind, but she's adamant.'

The two women were in the kitchen and Laura started to bustle around making tea for the two of them. Hermione sat down on one of the breakfast stools and slowly took in the site around her; the kitchen was modern and clean with a large range cooker and all the appliances that you would expect. Everything was in its place and easily accessible, there was something missing though, the clutter of toys that you would imagine an active four year old would have. She took another look at Laura; she had only seen the woman a few times after the battle and most of them were when she was either at her wedding or just after giving birth. The other woman was stunning, she had deep brown eyes, shoulder length black hair and was athletic in build, if you looked closely you could also see the odd scar from a curse of hex, one of the ones that Ginny couldn't protect her from. Hermione stopped taking in her surroundings when a mug of tea was placed in front of her and slowly took a sip.

'No,' she said finally. 'I can't blame her for leaving, not after everything she went through during the war.'

'And the rest,' came a huff from the other woman.

'What?'

'The rest, you know everything she had to go through the other year.'

Now Hermione was truly confused. 'Laura, what are you talking about, what did she have to go through?'

'You mean you don't know? I did wonder why you didn't visit, I just thought you were just too busy or something. Oh, when I get my hands on her, she won't know what hit her.' Laura took a breath and sighed. 'The other year we were attacked, she doesn't know who they were but somehow they found us. We had just finished putting Luke down when all Hell broke loose. She was magnificent, you have to believe me, she stood in front of me and Luke and took everything that they threw at her and fought back. There were colours shooting all over the place, she might not have used it in years, but she always has had her wand on her. Anyway, she was battling them and they must have realised that they weren't getting past her, so they started to disappear into thin air. Just before the last two left they seemed to combine spells and threw a potion, everything went bright. You have to understand, I wasn't hiding I was just shielding Luke and that's why I had my back turned.' The young mother was getting worked up a bit as she was reliving the event; Hermione quickly took the woman into her arms and started to soothe her back.

'Shh, it's alright, I'm so sorry that had to happen to you. You did everything you could and of course you were protecting Luke. It was lucky that Ginny always keeps her wand on her. I'm glad you're all alright, I would have come straight away if I had known.'

'That's the thing Hermione, we weren't all alright.'

Gasping Hermione gripped the other woman tighter to her. 'Luke wasn't hurt was he?'

'No, I think Ginny would have ripped your world apart if he had been. No, whatever they threw at her, well it injured her quite badly.'

'Okay,' Hermione said slowly. 'How badly injured was she?'

Laura looked at her with tears in her eyes. 'She's blind Hermione, completely blind.'