Disclaimer: The character and settings in this story are the property of people other than me. Mostly JK Rowling and her publishers. The story is published with no monetary gain by the author.

Five months later

It was four in the morning and Harry was wide awake. He'd discovered that he could sleep; it just took a lot of effort and usually wasn't worth it. Besides, if he had to haunt a place, the safe house wasn't a bad place for it. It was full of interesting objects and hidden rooms. With further exploration, Harry had begun to suspect that they were staying in Dumbledore's childhood home. The attic was full of photographs and paintings of wizards and witches who bore a striking resemblance to the old headmaster. He had even found a box of photos that he could've sworn were Albus Dumbledore's baby pictures. The baby in the pictures was chubby and lively, always wearing a pointed knit cap and a thick pair of socks, if nothing else. Harry wondered if Dumbledore would be embarrassed to discover that those pictures had been found.

Other than digging through the house, there were a million things that Harry could do at night when the rest of the house was sleeping. He had had Romy order him a Quotations Quill, and he spent many hours dictating to the fast-moving quill. He wrote down everything he could remember from his last night alive. He documented every meeting he'd had with Voldemort from both his perspective and Voldemort's, with the help of the Pensieve. Finally, when he ran out of important things to write about, he began recording everything he could think of about being a ghost. He had a list of things he could and couldn't do, in the order that he encountered them.

Can:

Sleep

Do magic (limited)

Fly

Walk through walls

Whistle

Glow

Effectively sneak up on people

Cry

Can't:

Touch anything

Smell (not entirely true – can smell rotten things)

Taste

Use the toilet

Hold a wand

Turn the bloody pages of a book

Eat

Drink

Smoke

Kiss

Hug

Have s -Be with Romy

Shower

Change clothes

Be naked

Grow more hair

See without my glasses (Still! Dammit!)

Gain or lose weight

Hit people (Malfoy is lucky)

Breathe (correction – can, don't have to)

Cook (never could, but worth noting that I have an excuse now)

Clean

The "can't" list was depressingly longer than the "can" list. Harry figured that he might write a book on being a ghost one day. He thought it might be helpful to other new ghosts, and to people who were likely to stay behind when they died. If they knew how awful it was, they might consider giving the afterlife a try instead.

Harry added a few more things to his lists and turned off the tiny desk lamp. He did most of his writing around this time of night, in the small room he shared with Romilly. He hadn't slept in the same bed with her since before Halloween, for fear that she might roll over in her sleep and wake up feeling like she'd been drenched in ice water. When he did sleep, he slept on the floor beside her bed. But most nights, he just watched her sleep. She looked like an angel in the moonlight.

He had been afraid, when they first found out that she was pregnant, that he would be forced to tell her that she looked beautiful even when her face was swelled up and she cried all the time. That wasn't the case. She did look beautiful, even now in the eighth month of her pregnancy. Her face hadn't swelled, nor had her feet. Any weight that she had gained was situated firmly in her growing belly and from the neck up, she looked the same as she always had. Possibly better. She managed to be optimistic and cheerful through the past five months, no matter what happened or how upset she could've been. She said that her being upset wasn't good for the baby, and she wanted him to come into a happy home and a beautiful world.

Him. She always referred to the baby as a boy, though she couldn't be sure. Hermione had offered to do a spell that would reveal the gender of the baby, but both Harry and Romy had refused. Harry was sure it was a girl, but Romy couldn't be discouraged. It was a boy, she insisted, and in a month they would find out who was right. George and Ginny had a bet going. Neither would say who they had wagered on, but Harry got the impression that the bet was worth a lot of money.

It was nice, all of them living together. Sometimes, it was almost like nothing big had happened. They would joke, and laugh, and enjoy each other's company for the most part. And then it would happen. Hermione would be looking up a rare plant for her potions and accidentally say something like "I should owl Neville and see if he has it". Or someone would mention their school years, and start a sentence with "George, remember when you and Fred…". Sometimes Harry would find himself walking through the house looking for Ron. It seemed so natural for his best friend to be there. They had spent most of their lives together. Hermione was there, so were Ginny and George. Harry found himself asking Hermione where Ron was before he remembered. At any of these slips, laughter died and everyone's eyes pointed to the floor. It would be days before things would go back to normal.

Malfoy put a damper on everything as well. He filled the house with his sullen presence and killed any high spirits just by walking into a room. The Mark on his arm served as a reminder of everything that had gone wrong. Harry flinched every time he saw it. It was a full month before Malfoy would willingly come out of the room he had been given. He ate his meals at his desk and emerged only a few times a day to go to the bathroom and shower. When he finally began appearing at dinner and spending time in the sitting room, he didn't speak. A cursory yes and no from time to time, but no more. It was early February before he participated in any conversation.

Romilly stirred in the bed and groaned a little, breaking Harry out of his thoughts. She awoke and sat up in bed, gripping her belly tight.

"What's wrong?" Harry whispered. Romy gasped a little, not awake enough to have realized that he was in the room.

"Nothing," she mumbled in a very sleepy voice. "Nothing wrong." A smile spread across her face as she fanned her hands out on her stomach. She looked up at Harry and her eyes were filled with an incredible joy. She beckoned him over.

"He's kicking, love. He's kicking me from the inside." Her voice was still slow and cloudy, but it was full of wonder. "Harry, you have to feel this. Here, put your hand right here." She reached for Harry's hand and he sprung back, feeling his eyes sting and watching comprehension dawn across Romy's face. He couldn't feel the baby kicking. He would never feel it. He would never hold his child. He backed out of the room with horror on his every feature. He couldn't face his pregnant fianceé just then.

"Hermione!" he screamed when he reached the hallway. He yelled again and again until doors began opening all over the house. Hermione appeared in the hall with her hair mussed and wearing only a blue cotton dressing gown.

"What is it, Harry? What's happened? What's wrong?" she asked in a voice too clear for someone who'd only just woken up. That was the way their lives were. If someone screamed in the middle of the night, something awful had happened.

"Hermione, you have to help me," he pleaded desperately as Ginny, George, and Malfoy stopped behind Hermione, all looking frightened. "You have to help me. I need to…" he stopped and looked around. He felt very naked all of a sudden. He was aware that tears were pouring down his face, but they left no mark when they dripped onto his shirt and onto the rug. "You can go back to bed," he said weakly to the group behind Hermione. "This doesn't concern you." They looked surprised and a little relieved, but dutifully went back to their rooms.

"Hermione," he gasped, after the last door had shut and the lights faded out. "Hermione, I need you to make me a spell."

"Harry, what is this about? What kind of spell? It's four in the morning!" She had lost the panicked alertness of a moment before and now simply looked annoyed.

"The baby, 'Mione. I want to touch my baby!"

"What? You woke me up at four in the morning to talk about…"

"No, this is important. He's kicking, and I can't feel it." Repressed sobs racked Harry's body, but he choked the words out around them. "I won't be able to hold him when he cries, or give him a bottle at two in the morning, or get him dressed for his trip to Hogwarts, or clean him up when he crashes his broomstick, or…" Harry couldn't continue. He wept with his entire being, feeling all of his hopes and fond dreams and possibilities drain out of his body with the tears. Had he looked up, he would've seen tears in Hermione's eyes as well, but he couldn't look at her. For a moment, he allowed himself to dwell on everything he had lost on Halloween, and it was dreadful.

His sobs subsided when Hermione's voice broke in. "I'll see what I can do," she said briskly, and returned to her room without another word. He was picking himself up off the floor when she re-emerged, fully dressed and groomed. He stared for a moment as she began to walk past him.

"I didn't mean you had to do it now!" he protested, suddenly feeling very selfish and guilty.

"I'm awake now, aren't I?" He shrugged in response.

"This is going to be a complicated spell, and I only have a month to do it, right?" She looked very cross now. He nodded. "Then I'd better get to it. I'll let you know if I need any help." With that, she quietly walked down the stairs into the study.

Hermione spent hours a day locked away in the study, working on the spell for Harry. Dumbledore hadn't given her anything to work on for over a month, so she seemed to be welcoming the assignment. The study door would open every once in a while and everyone would duck. They'd learned to do that the first day of Hermione's work when the door had opened and suddenly a book had come soaring down the stairs and into the study. It had hit Malfoy on the back of the head and knocked him out of his chair, too.

Harry often caught himself staring at the study door, praying desperately that Hermione was having some luck with the spell. It was the most important thing in the world to him now. Fortunately, there was enough going on to distract him from spending too much time brooding.

People came in and out of the house daily. Most were survivors of different battles. Others were informants whose double-lives had been discovered by Voldemort and his followers. A few were there just for a few days rest before they rejoined the war. But all of them had interesting stories to tell about what was going on in the outside world. The permanent occupants of the safe house were almost completely cut off from the rest of the world. Their fireplace wasn't connected to the Floo network, and owl's couldn't reach the house. Dumbledore took a Portkey to visit them at least once a week, but he wasn't very good at sharing relevant information.

Mostly, the stories these visitors told were happy. Such and such Death Eater had been killed, so and so had found such and such information, so many Muggles had been rescued. Harry tried to focus on these events rather than the more depressing news of death in the Order or towns taken over by Voldemort's forces.

Harry was chatting forcedly with Snape one afternoon when Hermione burst out of the study with a wild look in her eyes. Her gaze landed on Snape and she went into a long stream of barely distinguishable words. Harry could never understand her when she spoke so quickly.

"Professor Snape! I was hoping you'd still be here! Can you give me your opinion on something? I'm sure Harry told you what I'm trying to do here, and I could really use some help for a moment. Yes? You're sure? I wouldn't be taking too much of your time? Excellent!" They vanished into the study leaving Harry sitting stunned in an armchair. Had she found something? Would it work? He paced in front of the study door until it opened again. It caught him by surprise and Hermione walked right through him.

"Oosh…Harry, don't do that! Brrr, it's like walking in dry ice!"

"What's dry ice?" Snape asked, looking curious.

"Never mind. Harry, I want to talk to you about this project. Sit down for a moment?" Harry nodded mutely and sank back into his armchair. Hermione sat down opposite him and Snape left the room.

"Harry, I think I have a spell that will work for you," she began. Harry jumped up and lunged for her, catching himself a split second before he would've fallen straight through her and her chair. He composed himself and tried to pretend that he hadn't forgotten his inability to hug.

Hermione cleared her throat and continued. "I'm almost positive that this spell will make you tangible for a short period of time. And I'm nearly certain that it will only work once. Now, I need to ask you this – do you want me to test the spell on you now, in case it doesn't work, or do you want to wait until the baby is born and try it then?" Harry's face fell. How could he make a decision like that? On the one hand, he didn't want to waste his one chance at being tangible, but on the other hand, he didn't want to discover that the spell didn't work as his baby was being born. This was a tough question, to be sure.

"I'll wait," he said finally.