Written for the All You Need Is Love Competition; for the Ten Characters, Ten Prompts Challenge; for the Variety Challenge.
Warnings: Self-harm, implied depression, miscarriage.
Ginny Weasley had never lost anything.
She hadn't lost a father or a mother; she didn't even have a godfather. She hadn't been special enough to develop a relationship with the headmaster that developed into a respect, both the student's for the teacher and the teacher's for his student. She had never seen Severus Snape as a brave man.
But her husband was so much more experienced than she; as much as Ginny tried to stop herself from thinking it, she knew that he had experienced more loss. She loved Harry, she did, but perhaps he had instilled in her a sense of inferiority that only came when one was married to the savior of the Wizarding World. She'd permitted him to name their first child after his father and godfather, their third after his mentor and a man she could never bring herself to respect. She'd allowed their second to be called Rubeus Remus until there was a miscarriage and little Rue was gone.
And she respected James and Sirius, Albus and - well, not really Severus: but could she never name her children after those she loved? She could never feel love for James nor Sirius, Dumbledore nor ever Snape. She had not lost anyone, nobody but Fred, and Fred had been reserved for George since the day Ginny found him, years after the Battle of Hogwarts, hunched over a bloody bathroom sink with a razor and a face scrunched up in pain, not from his own physical wounds but from his brother's nonexistence.
It was one cool December, nearly New Year's Eve, when a heavily pregnant Ginny, unable to Floo due to the girl she carried and unable to send a quick owl, found herself wishing for Luna's presence.
"Harry!" she yelled, her voice straining, halfway entirely exhausted and halfway trying to put as much pain in her voice that her husband would think her contractions had started and would run upstairs immediately.
The plan worked; after Harry loudly bounded up the stairs and opened the door with a resounding bang, she told him that she needed to talk to Luna, who was of course her closest friend, and after a short and slightly annoyed pause and the expected inquiry of "You know you can talk to me, right?" (the answer, of course, being no), he resigned himself to Flooing Luna at the fireplace downstairs.
The blonde girl quietly stepped into Ginny and Harry's room minutes later with a small box and frazzled hair that stood up at every end. "Hullo, Ginny," she said cheerfully.
"Luna," Ginny greeted her with a dim smile plastered on her lips.
"How are you?"
"Dead, I think," she said.
"You're that tired? Well, she must be coming soon! I brought a gift, if you'd like it."
"Thank you, Luna."
"It wasn't a problem. I think perhaps you should open it when she's born, though. I think she'd like to see it opened."
"Won't you be at the hospital when she's born?"
"Oh, I do hope so! I wasn't sure whether you'd want me or not. I rather like you, you see, but I wonder sometimes if you really do enjoy my friendship."
"Of course I do, Luna!" Ginny said, shocked.
"Oh, wonderful. There have been so many people who haven't truly expressed their feelings of embarrassment while talking to me. I think your brother is one of those."
"Yes, well, Ron's a complete git, so I wouldn't be too worried."
"I have noticed that. I rather liked him before I really talked to him, actually."
Ginny gave a tired little laugh. "Yeah, I remember."
They smiled in silence for a moment. "Luna?"
"Yes?"
"I hate being married to the Chosen One."
"You don't dislike Harry, do you? Oh, I'd rather you not!"
"No, not at all. I love him, of course. S'why I married him," Ginny smiled. "It's just that I'm so insignificant compared to him."
"Ginny?"
"Yeah?"
"Harry gets all the credit, but for one, without you he wouldn't have had any happiness, and that's important. Nor would so many other people. I rather think that without happiness, nobody would do anything. My colleague's little sister, you know, she really quite loves Quidditch. She reads your articles every morning; they make her day. And you fought so bravely in the war, at the Ministry, at Hogwarts. Ginny, I do think you are so much more important."
"Thanks, Luna. Love you."
"I do really love you, too. Thank you."
Ginny smiled. With Luna, she always learned who she was. She'd certainly comply with Harry's wish to name their daughter after Lily - but only under one condition.
January 3, 2008
Ginny and Harry Potter
are proud to announce
the birth of their daughter,
LILY LUNA POTTER