Days went by, and Ginny knew she had to tell Harry about the baby. She knew it, yet somehow she couldn't. Every time she opened her mouth, some stupid comment about the weather or the latest celebrity breakup spilled out. Finally, on one particularly cold night, while she and Harry lay under the covers together watching Muggle sitcoms, she decided she had to tell him. Immediately.

"Harry?" She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him.

"Mm?" He didn't take his eyes off the tv.

"I have something to tell you." There were frogs leaping around in her stomach. She took a deep breath. "I'm pregnant." Harry didn't respond for a moment. Then he looked at her.

"Ha ha, very funny. You almost had me there." He patted her head and focused back on the 'Will and Grace' rerun on tv.

"Harry, I'm not joking. I'm pregnant." Harry sat up and stared at her for a few minutes.

"Weren't you using any protection?"

"Evidently not! You know I usually do but I guess one time I forgot to." Harry smiled.

"Don't worry, Ginny. I'll be there for you. Tomorrow, I'll make you an appointment with a healer."

"I'm definitely pregnant, Harry. One hundred percent. Not only did I take a pregnancy test, but my body's been acting weird lately. I know I am."

"I don't doubt it. You have actually been looking a bit rounder lately. I didn't want to say anything… thought I might offend you." Ginny raised an eyebrow.

"Uh, no kidding. But look, Harry, I don't need to see a healer. In fact, I'd rather we keep this sort of quiet for a while, if that's okay."

"Hey, if that's what you want. If you want, no one will ever have to know." He smiled again and took her hands in his. "We'll get through this."

"What do you mean, no one will ever had to know? It's going to be a little hard to hide, don't you think?" The laugh track on the tv sounded and she sharply waved her wand, turning the tv off. "And besides, I'm going to be proud to be a mother. Of course I'm going to want everyone to know, just not yet. I mean, Fred and Angie just got engaged… I don't want to steal their thunder or anything."

"Wait- Ginny, are you seriously suggesting that we have this baby?" He got out of bed and started pacing. "Do you know how… completely… how totally… that would ruin everything for me right now. If you have a baby I have to devote time and care to it, I have to take time away from work… I'm at the peak of my career! Show some fucking consideration, Ginevra. You can't have a baby now. I can't be a father now. It's ridiculous. Completely absurd and I refuse to even consider it. No." Ginny stared at him in disbelief. "You know my opinion on this… I could never abort my child, and giving it up for adoption isn't an option either."

"Well, I can't father a child right now. No way. Absolutely not."

"Harry, I love you, but giving up this child would be like giving up a piece of myself. With or without you there, I'm having him or her. But you've disappointed me tonight. You say you'll be there for me when I need you, but you mean you'll be there when you feel like it. That's not love at all."

"So, are you going to get rid of the baby?" Harry asked, rolling his eyes.

"No." Harry nodded.

"Then, I think we need to take some time away from each other. I'll call Hermione to come and help you pack up your things."

"Are you joking me? You're kicking me out of our apartment! Who do you think you are, Harry? I have just as much right to be here as you do."

"Well, Ginny," Harry began as if talking to a small child, "If I recall correctly, I make the money in this relationship. I pay most of the rent, and you submit a small percentage, which comes from your savings. Now, if I were to leave this apartment we both know you could barely afford the rent for a month, plus everything you need to survive on your own. No, it's best for you to return to the Burrow, or go stay with Luna. And now that I think about it, I'd rather you didn't get Hermione involved with this, I don't want her taking sides." Ginny scoffed.

"Because you know she'll take mine? You're a prick, Harry. What happened to you after Hogwarts?"

"I grew up, Ginny. Try it."

When Ginny woke the next morning Harry was gone, the covers on his side of the bed rumpled. Ginny closed her eyes again, attempting to sleep. The digital clock beside her bed said that it was almost ten. Sunlight was straining through the cracks in the blinds, and Ginny was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness. Desperately wiping tears away before they could fall, she pulled herself out of bed. She sighed, knowing that she had to pack her things and leave her home today. She stood up, surveying everything but not sure where to begin. She decided that the first thing she would need to do was to find a friend and get a good long hug.

Ginny took a pinch of Floo powder from the almost empty metal box over the fireplace. Throwing it in the fireplace she stuck in her head and said clearly,

"Creevey Residence". When everything stopped spinning, Ginny was looking into a very bare room, decorated with black and white furniture and lit only by a wall of floor to ceiling windows. Her best friend, Colin Creevey, was sitting in a stiff-looking white chair, reading the Daily Prophet. He looked up as Ginny's head appeared in the fireplace.

"Hey, Gin-girl. You'll never guess what happened last night. I was at this bar, and this absolutely gorgeous guy offered to-"

"Colin, I'm pregnant." Colin's jaw dropped. He stood up and walked toward the fireplace.

"Oh, sweetie. Congratulations, I think. What's the matter, love?"

"Harrydoesn'twantmetokeepthebaby," She blurted out, trying to keep from crying. An angry expression formed on Colin's face.

"What a scumbag. Let me guess, he's at the peak of his career, right?" He shook his head disbelievingly. Ginny let out a small hiccup. "I suppose that's the closest to a laugh I'm going to get out of you. Now, get the rest of your body over here, I'm getting out the ice cream, we're going to get Luna over here and say bad things about Harry 'til the cows come home!" Ginny chuckled tearfully and retreated into her house to floo back to Colin's.

"He did not." Luna's usually large eyes were simply enormous as she looked at Ginny's wet face. Ginny looked sharply up at Luna, who had grown several inches since Hogwarts and was now taller than both Colin and Ginny, and in fact the only person Ginny could think of whose height surpassed Luna's was Ron. Luna's face was stony. Ginny wondered if Luna actually didn't believe her for a moment, until Luna wrapped her long arms around Ginny tightly.

"Scumbag, right?" Colin put in.

"Well, why doesn't he want the baby? Did he say? Oh, was it…" She and Colin shared a semi-amused glance. "Was it 'I'm at the peak of my career'?" This time, Ginny gave what was unmistakably a laugh, and nodded. Apparently, more than just she had noticed what had seemingly become his catchphrase as of late. It had become his answer to almost any sort of question, from "How are you?" to "Would you like butter in the middle of your popcorn for only 50 cents more?".

The three of them spent hours, eating junk food and talking about old times and the latest gossip, and were lying on Colin's sofabed watching an old Muggle movie (after Rufus Scrimgeour's retirement from the Ministry, the new Minister had brought a new relationship with Muggles to the Wizarding world. Now, most Wizarding families had televisions in their homes) when Luna asked the question Ginny had been dreading.

"So what are you going to do?" Ginny felt hot tears prickling her eyes as she looked at them.
"I don't know," she answered after a moment, thinking. "I just don't know what to do. If I go home, Mum and Dad are sure to make me feel guilty for being pregnant and not married, and for making Harry angry. I can't tell Hermione or Ron because Ron will take Harry's side and get angry at me for not listening to Harry- you know he still worships the ground Harry walks on, not that he'd ever admit it- and if I tell Hermione she's sure to tell Ron. Ever since they broke up she's doing whatever she can to get him back, and if that means betraying me she'd have no qualms about it. We've never been close, we're just friends because she's around the family so much. And of course, if I want to go back home, I'll have to kill my baby, so--" She broke off. Colin was goggling at her. "What, Colin?"

"Don't be daft, Ginny! I've got a bloody huge flat, you can stay here!" Ginny blushed.

"I don't want to intru--"

"Rubbish. Go home, right now, and get your things and leave. Show Harry he can't boss you around anymore. Show him that you're leaving because you want to, not because he's forcing you out." Ginny nodded slowly, taking in his words.

"And bring everything you two shared! It's yours, too, you know!" Luna put in, as Ginny grabbed a handful of floo powder from the box on the mantle.

"I'll be right back," Ginny said, and disappeared in a whirl of green flames.

As Ginny looked around the flat she and Harry shared, it struck her how many of these things were theirs because of her. Expanding and reinforcing a plastic bag, she began making her way around the living room. She emptied the bookshelves, the books were all hers. Harry never read, except for Playboy (one of the very few ways he allowed himself to be connected to the Muggle world) and Quidditch magazines. Except for movies like "Friday Night Lights", the movies were hers, most of the little knick knacks around the living room were hers, a lot of the pictures were of her friends and family, those went in the bag. In the bedroom she stripped the bed with her wand; Harry had never been interested in decorating the apartment and because Ginny didn't want to sleep on a bare mattress she'd borrowed money from her mum to buy nice ones. All of her clothing went into the bag, as well as her makeup, the few movies and books she kept in here, and her jewelry (she purposely left the diamond necklace Harry had given her for her 18th birthday—not like she ever wore it anyway, it was far too gaudy for her, and she had a point to make). She took almost all of the food, reasoning that she bought all of it and Harry never ate unless she made him something. The dishes and silverware had been her grandmothers, those went with her, too. In the bathroom she took everything except his shampoo, deodorant, soap and toothbrush. He may have used the anti-aging cream, but it was most definitely hers. Finally, she stopped at the hall closet. The towels were all his, she didn't care about that. She was looking at the broomstick. It was hers… he used it to play Quidditch but it was hers. It was a Lightning Bolt, by the makers of the Firebolt. Incredibly expensive. It wasn't even officially on the market yet. Some high-profile Quidditch players had one, but very few were available to the public. Ginny had entered her name in a contest in Diagon Alley once, not thinking anything of it at the time. She hadn't even seen what the prize was! But a few weeks later a short, stinky man had appeared at the door wearing dark blue coveralls with a lightening bolt on the chest, and he had handed her what was unmistakably a broomstick, wrapped in shiny silver paper.

"Congratulations, Miss Weasley!" He had said unenthusiastically, and apparated. Harry had immediately swooped in and asked if he could use it for the game that night, just this once, please. Ginny had said yes, just one time couldn't hurt anything, but after that he'd taken it whenever he pleased, and if she tried to use it he got huffy and indignant, shooting her glares without saying anything.

But it was her broom. She was taking it with her. She felt a sort of childish glee once she was back at Colin's. A smile lit her face and wouldn't budge; thinking about how angry…how furious Harry would be when he realized she'd taken her broom, knowing there was nothing he could do about it.

That night, Colin made up a bed for her on the couch and went to bed early ("beauty rest, you know… but I guess you wouldn't, look at that face!"). Despite the stiff white canvas of the couch and the annoying whirring of an overhead fan, Ginny dropped off to sleep almost immediately, feeling sure that everything would be alright for her and her baby.