**eleven months later, in Dani's café, after hours**

Ginny

Ginny was not a crier.

So the fact that she was sat at a little table between Dani and Hermione, clutching a bowl of chocolate cake and icecream, sobbing, said a lot about how upset she was.

"Right. I can't tell if this is happy or sad." Said Dani bluntly.

"Both, I think," Hermione was rubbing Ginny's back sympathetically. It wasn't helping exactly, but it did stop her feeling like she was going to float away on a bubble of panic.

"It's just- I'm going- to miss- miss-" the sobs took over again.

"You don't have to keep this pregnancy," Dani, more bluntness.

"I- I know- I know- but I want- I want to- but I'll miss-" it was so horrible she couldn't spit it out. Every time she went to say it, she felt like a terrible person for being so upset about missing a quidditch match.

"You don't have to miss the match," It was Hermione this time, with the bluntness.

"But I'm pregnant!" Ginny wailed, too distraught to feel anything other than that this baby she'd secretly wanted for years was going to ruin her life. She'd worked so damn hard to get into the professional leagues.

"Yeah, see, every time you say that, I remember that Harry has man parts and it weirds me out," Dani again.

Ginny sob-snorted hysterically. Harry and Dani had a very solid amateur quidditch team mates relationship that centred entirely on quidditch and nothing else. She thought she'd once heard them discuss pumpkin pie, but the conversation had fizzled and they'd returned to discussing the world cup.

"Ok look. The brutal truth is, if you want to keep this baby, you might need to miss the finals. But we don't know that for sure. There's bound to be a whole suite of spells out there to protect the pregnancy so you can play. And if there aren't, we can invent some. This is not an insoluble problem," Hermione had gone prim and organised.

"What she said,"

"But what if-"

"The world's a dangerous place, Gin. Take reasonable precautions, but don't blame yourself if things go wrong. You could be an absolute saint, and you still might miscarry. The price of a child shouldn't be your life."

"But- but-"

"Imagine someone asking Hermione to give up her career!"

Ginny stopped crying abruptly. Thank heaven for distractions. She'd gone gulpy, but that was better than leaking uncontrollably from the eyes.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that."

"Giving up my career?" Hermione looked startled.

"No, you idiot. You need to go to Kolkata, and sort things out with Garth. Take Ron, so you can sleep, but you need to go. Professionally, you two were great together. Sort something out."

"Yeah," Dani piled on, "Like me and Weasley. But I grant you permission to steal him away to India temporarily, on the condition Molly's happy to do his shifts. We annoy the shit out of each other, but we do agree on food. Mostly."

Ginny stuffed a spoonful of cake into her mouth and choke-swallowed it.

What if I suck?

Tears welled up again.

She tried to say 'what if I can't fly properly when I'm pregnant', and it came out garbled with cake and tears. Fortunately Dani and Hermione seemed to understand.

"I'm fat; I fly fine,"

"People know your style, so you'll have an edge because you'll be flying differently. And never discount the psychological element. You may find people are less willing to wallop bludgers at you if you're pregnant. Even a millisecond of hesitation is something you can play with. I've seen you play other idiosyncratic features to advantage, why should this be different?"

Ginny considered this sceptically.

"What idiosyncratic features?"

Hermione had the grace to look guilty.

"Uh, well. I've seen you deliberately distract players who find you attractive. You're physically fairly small. I've seen you flinch and cower and play into it before slamming sideways into some lunkhead who never saw it coming. I've also seen you intimidate people on the pitch into thinking you're going to take a head-on aggressive approach, only to flip on them in the second half and do something sneaky. Put the pregnancy into the play: you are going to fly a little differently, so work out how to use it."

Ginny stared at Hermione. Then she turned back to Dani.

"Are you hearing this? Hermione's been watching quidditch! Hermione's understood the play!"

"Very funny. I barely have a single friend who doesn't play quidditch, so for all that you insist I know nothing about it, it's actually not true."

"But also why you need to call Garth."

Hermione sighed.

"I did like working with him. I didn't have to explain everything."

Ginny chuckled.

"Yup, and the rest of us didn't have to hear quite so much about microglia!"

"Sorry."

Ginny had another mouthful of cake, and spat it out as a horrific thought occurred to her.

"What if it's a little baby Tom?"

"Huh?"

"Harry was possessed; I was possessed; what if there's some kind of evil residue, what if-"

"Ok, stop, your fetus is not possessed."

"You don't know that, it-"

"Right. I'm going to go get Harry," Hermione got up and headed for the back room where the magically enhanced landline lived.

Ginny felt shaky and anxious and sweaty, and slightly nauseas.

Dani gave her a gentle shoulder nudge.

"Congratulations,"

"Uhhh,"

"So… do twins run in your family?"

"Dani!"

"What, it's better than evil spawn, right? Oooh, what if it's double evil spawn!"