Whoo. This chapter is longer than I was expecting it to be. But as I was writing it, I realized that there was no way that I could break it up into two chapters. Too much gets said in this chapter to make you all have to click an extra button. Thanks so much for all this inspiring reviews you guys! Enjoy!

I still own nothing. But I do have a job now! Hurray for me!

Chapter 14

They only stopped dancing long enough for Draco to give his speech. Ginny was dead on her feet, but she was feeling more excited than she had in a long while. Something new was beginning here, she could feel it. Truth be told, she'd been feeling it for a while, but like Hermione said, she'd been resisting it, resisting the change. She was still having a hard time rationalizing it, but it really was time for a change. Despite her impulsive kiss earlier that evening, both she and Draco did want to take this slowly, to do it right. Rushing it could ruin it. She shook her head and stuck her key in the lock. He'd kissed her goodnight and left her at her door like any gentleman would have done. It was her own fault that she'd been standing there in a daze for about five minutes. She opened the door and stepped in, locking it behind her.

"Hermione? I'm back. Are you still awake?" She glanced at the clock in the hallway and saw that it was one thirty.

"Well, she probably is. Unless they've had to do a C-section." A voice that was not Hermione's answered her. She screeched and flipped on all the light switches she could reach.

"Ron! What the hell!" She hissed at him, irritably. Then she frowned. "Wait, what?"

"Hermione went into labour about two hours after you left for your party thing. She called Harry in a panic. He took her to the hospital, and I came over here."

"You? Came over here? Knowing full well what she was doing here?"

"Come on, Ginny. We may have had our differences, but I'm not heartless enough to make a woman in labour call around for a babysitter when I could do it just as easily. I was with Harry when she called, and…well…Samantha was having a bit of a panic episode."

"Is she all right?" Ginny cried, making for the girl's bedroom. She had never thought that Hermione might go into premature labour, and never thought about how her daughter might react to it. Ron stepped in front of her and grabbed her shoulders.

"She's fine, Gin. She was just worried about Hermione." Ginny frowned again and looked him in the eyes for the first time in years.

"You haven't called me that in a long time." She whispered.

"I know. And…." He sighed. "And I'm sorry. I haven't been fair at all, and I know that now. I think I always knew it, I was just too stubborn for my own good." Ginny stared at him. Was he really trying to patch things up with her?

"Ron, are you…doing what I think you're doing?" She asked. Ron smiled at her.

"Ginny, your daughter is the most amazing little girl I have ever met. She never asked me a single question about why she'd never seen me before. She let me play with her, and had me read to her. And she was so worried about Hermione, I had to tell her repeatedly that she was going to be fine. The only way I could get her to go to sleep was to promise her that she could see Hermione in the morning. I have to admit that I am utterly ashamed of myself to have forced the two of you away from the family that loves you. Do you think you can possibly forgive me?" Ginny blinked and pulled away from him.

"I don't know, Ron. I used to think I could forgive you anything, because you were my brother and I loved you. But you made me feel so…cheap. And you never even tried to understand what I went through, waiting for news…and not feeling when I got that news. When you're in that situation, you do anything to feel. I could understand you being disappointed that I'd screwed up. Because I did screw up, Ron. I do know that, I'm not living in a naïve little bubble. But you didn't even trust me enough to know that I would never back out of a responsibility. Instead you all jumped on me, and you never let me explain what I was planning to do. You all just assumed that I was going to leech onto our parents, saddle them with my baby and run off on my own merry way. You should have known me better!" She cried, and she sat down on her couch with her head in her hands. Ron sat down next to her and touched her shoulder.

"We should never have yelled at you. I think we just didn't want to believe that our baby sister had grown up, and we hadn't even noticed. But…we were insensitive idiots, instead of loyal older brothers. And I really wish we hadn't been so stupid, because we have missed out on a lot of stuff. Like knowing about first words, and spoiling her on her birthdays. I'm also very glad that you've been sneaking her some visits with Mum."

Ginny glanced at him. He had an amused expression on his face.

"You know about those?"

"Sam gives her drawings. Mum doesn't always hide them when I visit the house. After the way she yelled at us when you left, there was no way I was going to complain about her seeing Sam."

Ginny managed a small smile.

"We've all been miserable without you, Ginny. Pride really is the worst obstacle in all things. We knew that there was no way that you'd come back on your own, and we were so determined that we had done no wrong. And it's been destroying our family."

"What about Fred and George? They had just as much to say as you did." Ginny watched Ron's face suddenly darken in embarrassment.

"They've been ready to scour the world looking for you ever since the morning you left." Ginny stared at him in disbelief.

"What?"

"What can I say? They've always been more levelheaded than I am. They slept on it, and were all ready to apologize to you that morning, but when we discovered you'd gone…."

Ginny blinked rapidly, then frowned at him.

"Are you telling me that the last five years of my life have been your fault, and your fault alone?"

"Well…more or less."

Two years ago, she would have been even more angry with him than she had been in the first place. Actually, yesterday she probably would have been extremely ticked off about what he'd just admitted to. But for some reason, right now, it was extremely funny. Through her gales of laughter, she could see Ron frowning at her in concern, and that only made her laugh harder.

"Ginny, I didn't think me ruining your life was all that funny." She couldn't stop laughing. In fact, she hadn't laughed quite like this in a long time.

"Ginny, seriously. You're going to wake up Sam." She bit her lip and tried valiantly to contain herself. It was difficult, but in the end, she was down to sporadic giggles while she wiped tears away from her eyes.

"Now. Are you going to tell me what was so funny?" She giggled again, but took a deep breath and tried to explain.

"I'm sorry. You know, if you'd shown up last week and told me that I probably would have decked you. Decked you, then tossed you out of the building myself. But today…I don't know. Today things are different. Hermione told me that I've been resisting change. I think she's right, and I think I've changed more over the last few days than I have in the past five years. I was thinking, when I was standing outside the door that it was time for a change. Time for something different. What better way to start something different than to forgive the past?"

"Forgive the past?"

"Yeah. I think I've never gotten over everything, and I made the past something that I carry around for people to see. And I don't need to do that, because even though I did screw up, I'm not ashamed of it. I tried to leave it behind. I tried to forget the past, but it's what made me. Someone once told me that sometimes the past doesn't want to be left behind. I think he was right. I can't forget it, but I can forgive it, and I can move on. It's time I did that."

"See, this is why you are one of the smartest Weasleys to ever grace the planet with her presence."

"Ooh, flattery. You think that's going to get you all the way back into my good graces?"

"Well, I'm hoping it'll help my case." Ginny laughed again. It felt good to banter like this again.

"Does this mean that you'll forgive me?"

"This means that you're almost completely forgiven. I have to make you work to get the rest of the way, because if I didn't I wouldn't get to have any fun at your expense."

"I can live with that."