Hi, so here is another chapter, I hope you all enjoy, i will endeavour to continue updating but i am now working from home and so therefore updates might be a bit slow. So far i am in good health and i wish each and everyone of you reading this the same.

I predict two more chapters or so until Easter in the book when Ginny comes home and then some explosive chapters.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.


Beat Your Heart Out

Chapter 15-Undecideds

Neville comes round for Christmas Eve (and for the answers to more than a few questions). Bill is hiding a big secret from the family. Ginny learns what Fred and George are doing with Lee Jordan and Lupin and Kingsley in the form of Potterwatch and Christmas ends with Ginny realising and wrestling with what she is going to give up and how she will do so.


It was a mark of how much life had changed since she had been at Hogwarts, that nobody in the family noticed. Ginny had been sure that she would be discovered within the first few days but she found that as she watched her family carry on that they didn't see what was right in front of them.

She suspected that it was the Illusion Cream because Ginny felt for the first time like she was carrying a baby. She could feel him.

She thought about this even as Christmas Eve dawned and a smart and rather haughty looking beige coloured owl had dropped off a letter from Neville asking her mother if it was possible he could drop by later that afternoon. Ginny had spooned a mouthful of her breakfast. She was pretending at least in the morning that she was cold by wrapping herself up in a blanket. She looked at her mother as she pushed her hash browns around her plate and felt a terrible sense of guilt at what she was she was going to put them through when this came out but still she did not feel ready to tell them. There was work to do and her baby boy had to wait until she had exhausted any possibility of help.

And that was another thing, she thought as she pushed her spoon around her bowl. She was now calling the baby a boy.

But she thought that he was a boy. Somehow when he kicked at her (which he was doing quite a bit) she found that she was seeing the baby as a real person. A real thing that would in nearly four months be coming out of her. Through the nights that she had lay there in her bed and she thought about her baby and she knew that she was thinking of him as a boy.

It was half genetic and it was half wishful thinking. Ginny didn't care—not really if it was a boy or a girl—she wanted a healthy baby, a healthy baby and a safe place where she could sleep and raise her child in peace. Already so much was being compromised. All Ginny wanted was a healthy child.

But when she thought about it, her hand stroking her stomach and unable to stop the smile that came to her face when she felt the baby kick as if it too knew that it's mother was there and giving it comfort, she thought it was a boy.

Genetics also came into it somewhat. She had been the first Weasley girl born into the family in two generations. She had been surrounded by brothers and uncles for years. She had never really had many girl friends either, Hermione, Luna, Tonks to some extent (she was sure as hell not going to say Astoria) but she knew how to work around boys, how to live with boys, how to deal with boys.

She was not sure what she was going to do if the baby was a girl.

Also, when she thought of the baby she thought of a boy, she thought of a boy with bright green eyes but with Harry's mop of black hair which never lay flat. She thought of him zooming around a toy broomstick and putting him to bed seeing the baby that his father had never been. She told herself that she would not care whatsoever weather or not this baby was a girl because she could also see a red headed baby with brown eyes who would hang on her father's arm and giggle and moan about being two young to go to Hogwarts.

Her mother would have called it a sixth sense though her standing here and thinking it was a boy.

Harry would have called it love.

Harry would have done a lot of things.

"Ginny" her mother said pulling her out of her headspace. Her mother stared at her and Ginny subconsciously pulled the blanket around her waist so that her bump was hidden. The Illusion Cream was supposed to hide it from sight (it was used by female auror's after all) but her mother had always been able to cut through the hippogriff shit and read her like a book—Ginny supposed it came with having six boys before you had a daughter shot her another long look. Ginny knew they were dancing on the edge of a cliff edge that neither one of them could come back from—if her mother asked then Ginny was not going to lie, but she did not want to. She did not want Molly Weasley to ask that question.

"Yes Mum?"

"Neville is going to come for Christmas Eve. I've told your father but I'd prefer it if he did not spend the night. I know Augusta has raised a fine gentleman but with the current climate the way it is…well…let's say I would be happy if our house was family only for a while" with that she turned back to her soup and Ginny swallowed a mouthful of tea coming to the conclusion that her father had been worried his daughter and Neville would be romping around in the sheets and that her mother wanted all of her family behind a locked door at night. She could laugh at one and cry at the other. She swallowed.

"I understand Mum" she said finally. "Trust me I do"

"Ginny…err…forgive me…have you been putting on weight? I mean it looks like—"

"I've been comforting eating" Ginny said in a rush. She knew her mother well, she knew that she was on the cusp of asking what was wrong and she couldn't have her ask it. Neither one of them were ready for the answer. So instead she went with as much of the truth that she could go for.

"I'm alone in that dorm and it's…it's hard. And I'm worried about Ron and—"

Her mother abruptly waved her wand and a pack of leeks fell onto the floor. Ginny saw her mother place them bending down and wincing and then she smoothed down her red hair (and when was it greying at the edges? Since when did that happen?) and then when she turned back to Ginny, Ginny knew that her mother was only half paying attention.

Hating herself she excused herself and ran back up to her bedroom. She watched the snow on the ground stick and the soft noise the gnomes made as they crunched across the garden their little feet ruining the perfect white snow that had fallen in the night.

There was no excuse to how much she was going to hurt her parents when the truth came out. But she couldn't…she couldn't give up yet. She had a duty to the children that had been placed in her care and she could not let them down. But as she stood there her hands on her belly she thought that once she got the first years to cast as close to a patronus as they could then she would go to McGonagall and tell her everything. If that never happened she would get to the end of March and tell her everything. The Easter holidays started with the last day of March. If she got to that without showing then she would take it. Either way. She was now prepared.

But was she?

She was not prepared for a baby, there was no crib, there was no blankets or clothes or nurseries, there were no stuffed animals. And more to the point there was no father in the picture.

It shouldn't have mattered as much as it did.

But it did matter.

The whole preparedness of the baby's arrival didn't matter. At any given time they might have to go into hiding, it was a bit difficult to transport a crib and other things such as toys and clothes when the Death Eaters were knocking at the door. She forced herself to breath again staring out the window.

She stayed there for a very long time.


Neville arrived at half ten. Ginny was still asleep and she came to wake with a sleepy kind of contentment that never lasted more than ten seconds after waking. She saw out of the corner of her eye sleep filling them and she opened them to see a man standing there facing the window his hands behind his back. She could see the dark hair standing up and for one glorious second she thought that Harry had somehow despite all the dangers had come back to her and was waiting. He'd turn with that crooked smile and then snuggle under the bed covers with her and his hand would find her belly and he would laugh as he felt their baby kick against the thin skin of her stomach.

But it wasn't Harry.

It was never Harry.

It was Neville.

"Merlin" she said sitting up and rubbing a hand across her face to dispel anything that was left of the sleepiness. Neville turned to look at her, his eyes slid down her stomach and then back to his face. He looked decades older than he actually was and Ginny wondered if that had been his father's face before his father had been tortured into madness.

"Good morning to you too. Your mother let me in. She seems…out of sorts…I suppose it's the worry. My Gran actually hugged me the other night. I can see why you don't want to tell them and why they haven't see it"

"Nev"

"Ah I put a charm on the door. Don't know how long it's gonna last but we need to clear up a few things before we go back to Hogwarts"

"There is nothing to clear up Neville. My plan is still what it has always been and nothing you say is going to change that"

Neville nodded.

"What if I said it was mine" he said finally in a rush. "I could say that and you could come back to school and—"

Ginny laughed, she couldn't help herself. Neville watched her with a rather hurt expression and Ginny suddenly felt her heart (and her stomach heave a little).

"Neville" she said finally sitting up so that her belly was straining against the confines of her shirt. "That's sweet really it is and I'm grateful that you'd do that for me but it wouldn't help. This baby would still be a target simply because I am Ron's sister. Or because my family are the biggest Blood Traitor's around. At some point we are going to have to go into hiding. My mother and father are doing their best to keep us from knowing that fact but I think the days were I had a childhood went two years ago when Harry came back from that maze. Also…with the greatest respect Neville your also a wanted target. You've been making the Carrows life hell and you know one day Bellatrix Lestrange is going to want to finish what she started all those years ago. Besides, he's Harry's baby, he's always been Harry's baby, I have to keep the faith that Harry will come back to see him one day—besides" she added slyly. "Nobody would really believe it. And you'd break Hannah's heart"

Neville went pink. "Oh you think that do you?" he asked in a way that told Ginny he was squirming inside with pleasure at the thought of it. Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Oh honestly Neville use your eyes. Give me a minute as well because I have to go and pee and find a jumper that covers the bump"

Neville nodded and when Ginny came back he was reading the label of the Illusion Cream with wide eyes.

"I had no idea stuff like this existed. Does it really work? I'd have thought your mother would have seen right through it?"

"Trust me it works, I've been here a week and anyone has yet to notice. It apparently makes me look like I've just put on some small weight gain. I don't know how long I'm going to be able to do it. And don't ask me why I don't tell them. I go downstairs and tell them I might as well kill them both know. I need time. I need to keep him safe for as long as possible. Don't ask me to explain it. I think it might be a mother thing but…" she shook her head feeling close to tears with all of these emotions that were bottling up inside her and she found that she could not breath. Neville perhaps hearing the tremor in her voice decided to not comment on it. Instead he sat down on the windowsill and things remained quiet for as long as possible. Ginny rubbed some more cream on her stomach. Neville watched though there was nothing sensual about the moment. In fact until he spoke Ginny hadn't realised he was watching her at all.

"It does seem to work" he said carefully. "You look like you've been eating desert every night for months but you don't look…with child…"

"Good" Ginny said. It was good to hear it from someone who knew. She stood up and massaged her bladder again. Fuck. This baby was now firmly jumping up and down on her bladder.

"Him huh?" Neville asked when Ginny washed her hands and came out of the bathroom. "You think the baby is a boy?"

Ginny smirked sitting cross legged.

"I don't know. But when I picture the baby in my head it's a boy. To be honest though Neville if I have a healthy baby and I'm safe and secure and with my family when I deliver him then I'm going to be happy. But sometimes…I don't know when the baby started kicking then I thought of It as a real person and when I thought of that real person I saw a boy"

Neville said nothing for a very long time and then when he spoke it was with a lighter tone than he was used to. He reached for the bag that was at his side and pulled out a parcel.

"Well I picked up a couple at the muggle book store" he said with a shy smile that reminded Ginny in a way that nothing else had of the boy who had blushed painfully and had looked down at her feet when he had asked her to be his date to the Yule Ball. She looked down and saw three books all to do with motherhood and then to her utter amusement one on baby names and a little stuffed duck in soft yellow with an orange beak that was perfect for a baby to clutch to. Soon her amusement turned to emotion and to her mortification she found herself near tears again. Damn hormones. Neville patted her awkwardly on the back.

"Look…I won't tell anyone. Parvati and Lavender have been chomping at the bit to do more as has Cho, I can cover your…inaction…you can carry on teaching but Ginny…if I think your in danger, if your captured by the Carrows…all bets are off"

Ginny nodded taking that for what it was.

"I appreciate that Neville"

They sat there on Ginny's bed for a little while before she wiped her eyes. Neville being the gentleman didn't comment on it. Instead when she stood up it was to reach for her shawl.

"Come on" she said jerking her head downstairs. "My mum will want to feed us and the more time we spend up here the more she's going to think that we are ravaging each other between the sheets"

Neville choked on his tongue.


Christmas came and went with little to affect the Weasley family. Ginny received a new jumper, a red one of the softest wool that privately she knew would be easy to stretch over her stomach. Fred and George had gotten her a pair of shoes that were made of a dark purple suede and had the heel cut out of that Ginny couldn't help but fawn over because they were high heels and she knew that while her ankles remained unswollen she would wear until she couldn't. Bill and Fleur (remaining firm on their desire to spend Christmas with themselves and not family—though why Ginny could not see) had sent her a soft set of purple pyjama's with fuzzy socks and a body cream that smelt of lavender that Ginny knew from the little kick she got when she smelt it, the baby would agree with. She got from Charlie a stuffed dragon and a leather bound journal and she noticed that there was a quill wrapped in paper that Errol had delivered. Ginny had claimed it was from Neville but she did wonder weather or not it was from Percy. She didn't think it was from Ron, and Harry knew her better than to get her a new quill.

She kept it. Life was too short and life was too hard. If Percy wanted to send her something then she wasn't going to turn it away. She thought it came with growing up.

Besides. She was running out of family, better or worse.

Lupin and Tonks spend New Years with them. Lupin was looking lined and greyed more than usual but when Tonks exclaimed during a mouthful of her cheese and tomato canape that she could feel the baby kicking, Lupin nearly threw his into the light behind him and placed her hand on the bump his expression becoming one of joy rather than the concern that had always prematurely lined his face. Ginny watched them. She was avoiding Tonks as much as she could simply because she knew the other woman would be able to see through her more than Ginny was prepared for. And if she was being honest with herself then she didn't want to be near the happy couple. It was pain upon pain, a mockery of all that she would give her right arm to have. She wanted nothing more to do than to reach for Harry who should be standing there in the kitchen with a mug of cocoa, he would smile and reach for her rounded belly and she wouldn't be in hiding at the bottom of the stairs or seeing in the new year watching the stars in the clear sky from her open bedroom window, feeling her baby kick and feeling the tears dry on her face.

It was inevitable that she would find out.

Well actually it wasn't because Fred and George told her, they told her about Potterwatch, they told Bill and Charlie as well and Ginny had left the room because there was a time and a place and neither one of her twin brothers needed her joining in.

She slipped back up to her bedroom and went to the bathroom. Merlin this constant peeing was getting irritating.

Ginny couldn't judge her brothers, she thought as she dragged her trunk back onto her bed and began to pack ready for the train ride back to school the day after because quite frankly, she was already behaving quite recklessly enough as it was.

The baby kicked inside of her.

Ginny's mouth twisted, it was almost like her boy agreed with her.


And there you are, i will try and update as soon as i can. I wish everyone well.

Next Chapter-Ginny goes back to Hogwarts and lays the groundwork for her escape and her rebellion. Patronus charms are now being cast and Hagrid becomes the latest casualty at Hogwarts.