Ginny was sitting on her bed, holding Al's stuffed owl in her arms. She was staring out the window into the night sky. It was clear, star-filled and beautiful. Albus loved the stars.

The Healers had given her the owl after they were asked to leave the room. Ginny's first thought was that Al would want his owl. He was always frightened in new places (She knew there was a place. Harry had told her there was). She couldn't find it in herself to give Owl back, though. What would become of it anyway?

Harry walked into the room and sat next to her. Without looking at him, Ginny spoke.

"Do you think he really saw her?"

"I do." Harry replied, pulling Ginny against his side.

"Why is this so hard?" Ginny asked, sniffling into his shoulder. "He doesn't have to be in pain anymore, I should be happy about that."

"But you aren't going to be happy about that. Neither am I. I know he was hurting, but he was our son. We held him when when he was just a baby, we watched him grow up. Now he's gone and we can't ever have him back."

"It's not fair." Ginny whispered.

"No, it's not fair."

"What did I do wrong?"

"What?" Harry asked, shocked that Ginny would blame anything on herself.

"What did I do wrong, Harry? Why did he have to leave us?"

"You didn't do anything wrong, Gin. You did everything right. He left us because it was his time to. He was a smart kid, probably smarter than we'll ever know. We only knew him for a short time. Maybe he has something more to do and he couldn't do it with us."

Ginny snuggled closer to him, still holding the stuffed owl tight in her arms. "I hope he knows how much we love him."

"I think he does." Harry said, moving his hand to rub Ginny's back.

"I'm not going to make it through these next few days, Harry."

Harry kissed the side of her head. "I know. Me either." He couldn't bear to think of Albus laying in some room somewhere, alone. He only wanted to think of him tucked into bed, sleeping soundly. "We'll be okay. I promise. Somehow... eventually."

"Mummy? Daddy?" came a tiny voice from outside the door. "Can I come in?"

"Come in, Lily-Flower." Harry said gently.

Lily opened the door and crawled onto her parents' bed. Harry allowed her to sit in his lap. "I can't sleep. Not without Al next-door."

"Me either." James added, joining his family on the bed. "It's only been a day, not even, and I don't like it. It's too quiet, not that he was loud or anything, but it's empty."

Ginny sniffled, Lily cuddled more against Harry's chest.

James and Lily wound up sleeping in their parents' room for the next three nights.

There were too many 'I'm so sorry's and 'It'll get easier's. Ginny had to get out of there. Lily was practically attached to Harry's hand. James was sitting in the corner of the room, holding his head in his hands, pretending he wasn't crying. Different people would come sit by him and try to talk to him. His girlfriend couldn't even get him to talk.

Ginny had escaped to a bench outside, still holding Al's owl. She hadn't let it out of her sight since he passed away. Her mother was starting to worry about her attachment to the thing, but her father had managed to convince her that it was her way of grieving, like the way she held onto Fred's hand from the clock after it fell off.

There were so many people there. Minerva and Hagrid and several other teachers had showed up. A lot of his school friends and their families, people Harry worked with, Ginny's old Quidditch team and her coworkers from the Prophet. So many people, all pretending they knew how much it hurt. They weren't empathetic, they were sympathetic pretending to have empathy. No one knew Albus like she did. She used to stay up late with him until he finally fell asleep (he had awful insomnia), she held him when he cried. She felt almost guilty because she hadn't cried very much, but she felt too numb to do much of anything.

"Um, excuse me?"

Ginny turned to look at a blonde boy. She smiled a bit. He was Albus' best friend. Scorpius and Al and Rose were the Harry, Ron, and Hermione of their day. Just quieter and making much less trouble. "Hello Scorpius."

"I'm sorry to bother you Mrs. Potter, I just wanted to give you this." Scorpius shyly pulled a small dinosaur figurine from his pocket and held it out to her. "Albus left this in my room last time he was over. I figured that you ought to have it back."

Ginny recognized it as one of his favorites. Albus had always loved dinosaurs of all kinds (he had a large collection of figurines in his room) and stegosauruses were his absolute favorites, this one particularly. Leaving it it Scorpius' room was not an accident. James would excitedly hand over something he made when he was little, Lily would too, though shyly. Albus would always leave it for someone to find. He was too shy to give it to you in person.

"Scorpius," Ginny began slowly, smiling a bit to herself at the memories of finding little things over the years from Al. "I learned many years ago that Albus never accidentally leaves anything anywhere. If you find something that's from him, he wanted you to have it."

"But-"

"Scorpius, he wanted you to have it. You keep it."

Scorpius smiled weakly and put it back in his pocket. "He was a good friend. I'll miss him a lot."

Ginny smiled back.

"Scorpius, honey, it's time to go." Astoria said, walking slowly over to them. Astoria put a hand on Scorpius' shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Ginny. I know you probably will hear that for days, but I know how you feel. I lost my little girl when she was only a year old. It does get easier, eventually. It's a slow process but I promise it will."

Ginny smiled a bit at Astoria and stood up. They were friends, so Ginny hugged Astoria and then Scorpius. "Thank you for coming."

"You're welcome." Astoria said quietly.

"I should probably go back inside."

"If you ever need anything, you let me know." Astoria said.

Ginny nodded and went back inside. Lily was sitting by James now, holding his hand. She had managed to get him to talk. Harry took Ginny's hand. Rose had lingered by them for awhile, before Hermione and Ron brought her back by them.

When they got back home, James and Lily started off in their own bedrooms, but eventually Lily went in James' because they were both feeling lonely. Harry and Ginny sat next to each other on the couch because they were feeling lonely too.

This behavior was odd, considering Albus Potter had thought himself to be rather boring and unimportant. Part of him even thought that his family would be better off with him gone.

A/N: Hi everyone, sorry it took so long for the update! I've had this all typed out for a while but with finals and all, it got to be a bit overwhelming! You can expect probably two more chapters in this story. I'll probably be starting a HTTYD story in the near future (the second movie is AWESOME by the way!) if anyone's interested.

Thanks for reading you guys, I hope you liked it! Please review, it means a lot!