You've heard of us- everyone has. You know of it; that little happy-family, heartwarming moment you all have been told about, nineteen years after the wars end. I've always found it funny how they've portrayed that moment. Look at the golden trio and their wonderful lives and wonderful children and wonderful friendship, and didn'tcha know it, but it's always sunny where they live! You'd never know from what everyone says that there was anything less than superb in our lives, now that Voldemort is defeated. I guess it's just to keep the illusion of happy times going, to give people support and hope for the society that is still slowly being rebuilt. Sometimes I wish that I could go back to that moment and scream out to the world what was really going on.

Harry and Ginny have always had marital problems. She's never really forgiven him for dumping her at the end of sixth year, no matter how many times he tried to explain it. And can you blame her? As nice as it works out in fairytales and picture books, what girl wants to be told 'Oh, sorry, I can't date you until I'm done saving the world because you might get in the way'?

After the war, Harry took to drinking. Beer or wine, straight alcohol or liquor, muggle or wizard-made; he drank it all, and heavily. Lily had been conceived one night after he'd forced himself on Ginny in a drunken stupor. Around the time of that 'happy family gathering', things had gotten much worse. Ginny had spent many a night on my couch, afraid to go home and face her husband. As it was, the wizarding cameras couldn't catch all the bruises she'd cast a glamour spell on.

I remember little James going on about Teddy and Victoire kissing at the station. That wasn't a surprise to us, really. We'd known they were dating and approved of the match. What shocked us all was her bearing his child that spring, two months after he ran off with a muggle prostitute. She's living with Fleur's sister now, working as a maid. She didn't ever graduate from Hogwarts.

While I love my children and my husband dearly, standing on that train platform didn't seem real. I was bantering with Ron and Harry, wishing my farewell to the children, but my mind kept straying down the platform to where my other child stood. Ron was working and too busy to come to the hospital when Rose and her brother were born. And how glad of that I am. Rose looked like me from birth, but her brother was pale and blonde. As sure as I am that Ron has cheated on me numerous times in the past twenty-odd years, I know he never found out about Draco and I's relationship. We were careful- and who'd believe it anyway? Granger, Harry Potter's best friend, cheating on her husband with their second-most hated enemy? We haven't spoken in years, and neither have I gotten to watch my beloved son grow up.

But I can't tell that to the world. They wouldn't believe me, and those who did would be shocked and heartbroken to see their hero's unveiled. But to you reading this, remember. There's always rain in paradise, and you get wet no matter how good an umbrella you have.