A/N: To say it's been a while would be an understatement. I've struggled with writing for a long time now, but I've been determined to finish this story. I've spent months thinking of what the next step was for Harry and Ginny and how I wanted this story to end. I'm not sure I have a concrete answer yet but I do know how I want to continue for now. If you've stuck with me this far, thank you for having faith in me. There were times even I wasn't sure that this story would ever be complete. But I have hope that it will be.

Warnings for this chapter: self-harm

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter Eleven

Harry wasn't immediately sure of what had woken him from the first peaceful sleep he had had in nearly a week. He listened for a moment, trying to discern if the noise was coming from Lily's room. He and Ginny had placed a Monitoring Charm on her room before putting her to bed that night. Ginny had insisted that she sleep in her own bed, which had surprised Harry after she had been missing for four days. But he agreed that any sense of normalcy would only aid Lily in her recovery.

Content that the noise was not coming from Lily's room, Harry reached to pull Ginny closer to him, only to discover her side of the bed was empty. Confused, Harry sat up and looked about the room. The door to the bathroom was closed and a dim light shined from the crack under the door. Climbing out of bed, Harry walked to the closed door and knocked.

"Ginny?" he asked.

"Just a second," Ginny replied. Her voice seemed odd somehow and Harry tried the doorknob, glad to find she had not locked the door.

"Ginny, are you okay?" Harry asked as he pushed the door open.

The scene that greeted him stole his breath for a moment. Ginny was kneeling on the floor, picking shards of glass out of the bathroom rug with her left hand. Her right hand was bleeding. Ginny looked up as the door swung open. She looked from Harry down to her hand and back again.

"It's not what you think –"

"What happened?" Harry exclaimed. "Are you okay?"

Harry knelt beside Ginny, pulling her towards him by her right wrist. He inspected the cut on her hand and was relieved to see that it wasn't deep. The shards of glass appeared to be from the glass rinse cup they kept in between the double sinks.

"It was an accident," Ginny said as Harry pulled a hand towel down from where it hung on the wall. He pressed the towel into her cut, closing her hand around it with his own. "I didn't cut myself."

"I believe you," Harry told her. He kept his hand on hers, holding pressure on the cut while he dug around in the cabinet for healing supplies. "But you've wanted to, haven't you? I can tell. And who can blame you with everything going on."

Ginny looked up at him abruptly, surprised that Harry knew of her internal struggle. She hadn't mentioned it to anyone least of all her husband. After all, Harry had spent the last four days giving all of his energy to the search for Lily. And after the miscarriage, there never was a good time to broach the subject.

"I have wanted to," Ginny admitted after a pause. "But I haven't given in. I think I'll always want to when something bad happens. But that doesn't mean I have to give in." Harry finished wrapping her hand and looked down at her. Their eyes met. "I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize our family, Harry."

"I know you wouldn't," Harry said as he pulled her into his arms. They sat huddled on the floor together for several minutes, taking comfort in the arms of each other.

"Do you think she blames us?" Ginny asked quietly after a while.

Harry sighed deeply. He tucked Ginny's head under his chin while he thought of how to answer his wife. He didn't want to give Ginny any reason to blame herself more than she already did. But the truth of the matter was that he didn't know whether Lily would blame them for her abduction or not. What he did know was he had done everything he could to bring Lily back to safety and he had succeeded.

"I don't know," Harry said truthfully. "I do know that we did everything possible to keep her safe and once she was taken, we did everything we could to find her. Lily is young. There's still a chance she won't remember this once she gets older. Think about it. How much do you remember from when you were five?"

And Harry was right. As time passed, Lily was less afraid to leave the familiar surroundings of Potter Manor. She slowly acclimated to traveling to the houses of her cousins and her grandparents. Her nightmares were frequent, but during the day Lily was like any other child. She played with her cousins and her brothers. While at first Lily had been afraid to leave her parent's sight, that too faded and she ventured farther and farther away from them. Eventually, the nightmares faded as well.

Months passed. Nena went into labor early in the morning of the first of May. Amadeus Reed Malfoy was born a whole twenty-four hours later. Ginny warred with her emotions, knowing that if things had been different, it would be her turn to give birth next. But Joanna had been taken from them, just as Lily had been. And while life continued peacefully for a while, Ginny knew that it wouldn't last. The trial for the Lestrange brothers was approaching and with it the question of whether Lily would have to testify before the Wizengamot in the largest trial in modern Wizarding history.

Harry had returned to work a month after Lily was saved, hoping that some normalcy would help the whole family. He still returned home each day at lunch to see his children and his wife, and McGonagall had been very understanding of the situation. She had even tried to get Harry to take more time off, but he had refused. As much as Ginny enjoyed having Harry around, they both knew that life could not stay on pause indefinitely.

Harry and Ginny were sitting in the breakfast nook having a light lunch when Tonks's head appeared in the fireplace. She was working closely with the Wizengamot to get things ready for the trial. So far, Ginny and Harry had heard little about the trial except that it would be taking place the following month.

"Wotcher, Harry," Tonks said with a tired smile. "Do you have a moment?"

"Of course," Harry said as he put his sandwich down on the plate in front of him. "Come on through."

A moment later Tonks was standing in the kitchen, brushing the ash from her clothes. Dobby appeared with a broom and dustpan to clean up the mess she left behind. Tonks took a seat at the table and helped herself to the sandwich fixings.

"I hope you don't mind," Tonks said as she took a large bite of the sandwich she made. "I haven't had a chance to eat yet."

"Not at all," Ginny said. She left the table and returned with a clean plate for Tonks. "The kids are taking a nap, but we can talk in here. What's going on? You don't normally visit this time of day."

"As you know, the preparations are going ahead for the Lestrange trial. I spoke with Madame Bones today and Lily won't have to testify. Pensieve evidence will be used instead."

"That's great!" Harry said. He turned to Ginny expecting her to be delighted with the news, but her face was impassive. "Ginny?"

"She'll still have to remember what happened," Ginny said unhappily. She crumbled her napkin and tossed it on her half-full plate. She had lost her appetite. "She'll be forced to relive everything those men did to her."

Harry reached across the table and took her hand in his. "We knew this was coming. We knew that Lily would have to give some form of evidence to convict the Lestranges. At least this way she won't have to be in the same room as her kidnappers."

"Why does she have to testify at all?" Ginny asked angrily, pushing away from the table and jumping to her feet. "Plenty of witnesses saw Macnair kidnapped her. DNA evidence was taken from the underwear sent to the house. There's enough to convict them both!"

"Ginny," Harry said softly. He tried to tug her back into her seat, but Ginny pulled her hand out of his reach and began to pace the kitchen angrily. "This isn't Tonks's fault."

"It's okay, Harry," Tonks said. She pushed her chair away from the table. She clasped her hands in her lap and regarded Ginny carefully. "Things would be different if Macnair was alive."

"If I hadn't killed him, you mean," Harry retorted.

"You did what any father would have done," Tonks defended him. "But the DNA evidence came back to Macnair, not the Lestranges. The best we could hope for without Lily's memories is child endangerment. They weren't the ones who kidnapped her. We have no evidence that they assaulted her, not without the memories. The best we can prove is they knew where she was being held."

"So either Lily testifies or the Lestranges get a relaxed sentence," Ginny said unhappily. She returned to the table, knowing her anger had been misplaced. She shouldn't be angry at Tonks. She was only doing her job.

"If we have any hope of a lengthy sentence, we have to get those memories," Tonks said. "Nena Malfoy returns from maternity leave next week. We've asked for her assistance in recovering the memories."

"Does it have to be so soon?" Ginny asked. She wished she could spare Lily the pain of reliving her abduction for as long as possible.

"The sooner we know what is in those memories, the better we can present our case. We lost time already looking for Rodolphus Lestrange after his brother was apprehended. Instead of mounting a case against the two, we had to assign Aurors to continue the search for Rodolphus."

Ginny sighed heavily.

"I'll take Lily to Nena next week."