Her dreams had begun to become less and less frequent over the next few weeks, and yet her raging hormones had caused her to become even more emotional and confused. Draco was having a hard time knowing which way was up with her during the day; her moods had continued to fluctuate like the wind. Yet during the evening, just as the children would fall asleep, the passion within her would erupt, either by kissing him furiously or bursting into tears as she tried to decipher the perfect way in which she could explain to Jill and Jeremy what was happening to their once happy little part of being so close to understanding the world from which she had come and being so close to the man who she both resented for keeping it a secret and yearned for with desire unequivocal to anything else she had ever felt was finally causing her to reach her breaking point.

One night, as her kisses had become more and more wild, he placed his hand on her shoulders to stop her. He knew she would go no further with him while the children were sleeping in the same room, but the desire within him was frustrating, and there was a very small part of him that was desperate to understand what she was thinking and feeling. The majority of him was overtaken by his need to be with her again, after having felt so distant for so long.

"Ginny," he said with swollen lips and heavy breath. "Ginny, I can't…"

"Can't kiss me?" she asked breathlessly, honestly hurt.

"No - well - yes," he said with a sigh. "I mean, I can't just kiss you. I want you so badly it's killing me. And being so close to you without being able to… to touch you… It's maddening."

Ginny closed her eyes. "I know what you mean." She sighed and nestled her head in the crook of his neck. "I don't know what's come over me, but it's like I can't get enough of you."

He smiled at her. "Pretty soon, when this is all over, you and I will be able to spend every night wrapped up in each other."

Her eyes flashed darkly, but only for a split second. "Right."

"Ginny?" he questioned with concern. "Something on your mind?"

"It's nothing." Her response was short and cold. "I'm just going to go to sleep, I think."

Draco sighed under his breath. "No. No, stop it." He nearly barked the words at her, and then immediately felt guilty for doing so. "Please, Ginny. Please, don't shut me out. We were just starting to get close again."

She bit her lip and closed her eyes. "I can't tell you what I'm thinking. I don't… I don't want to hurt you."

He shook his head. "You can't hurt me in any way I don't deserve."

She brushed her hands through his blond hair that was in desperate need of cutting. "I have so many thoughts rushing through my head right now, and all of them seem to contradict each other. I have so many things I want to…" She broke off, sighing heavily and tiredly. "I have one man in my life. Just one. You. You're the only person I love, and you're all I can see of tomorrow. I have children with you, and I have shared a bed with you for, literally, all of the time in my life that I have memory of. So if you think I'm going to hurt you willingly and intentionally, then you must not know anything about me."

"But…" he said, trailing off, because he could sense what was coming next.

She sighed. "I'm afraid. I want to remember everything. I have wanted to for years. I'm just scared that… that I won't be in love with you when I can remember you."

"Oh."

She swallowed hard. "What if I get my memories back and I only want…"

"Harry," he said, finishing her sentence with a distinctly bitter tone in his voice.

Ginny almost smiled. "I take it… I take it you two weren't the best of friends?" She paused, running her fingertips along the curve of his strong jaw. "You said I defended him to you. Were you a bully, Draco?" She asked this last question almost playfully.

"I was a right git," Draco murmured. "And I was never nice to you, much as I respected you once I saw how powerful you were. You hexed me once when I was about fifteen, and from then on, I always stayed out of your way." His expression darkened. "But when I found out that you needed help, when you told me you were pregnant that night, I couldn't… I couldn't walk away."

"Do you love me now that you remember it all?" she asked, biting her lip. Her eyes were glistening with the tears that she was desperately trying to hold back.

He smiled as kindly as Draco Malfoy ever could. "To be honest, the day that we… when I remembered… I didn't think I did. I didn't understand why we were together, and truthfully, you're just about the last person I ever pictured myself with. But then you kissed me in the car while I was trying to figure it all out, and everything got so clear. I knew who I was as Draco and who I was as Drew. It all came rushing back to me, and I knew I loved you - both as Gwen and as Ginny."

Her eyes surrendered to the tears. "What's she like?"

"Ginny?" His smile grew even further and his eyes lit up in a way that she had never seen before. "Strong and brave. You were a Gryffindor at school - they're the lions. Courageous and noble and all things good. She was never afraid to stand up for herself or take care of the people in her life." He paused, kissing away her tears. "But Ginny is also mischievous and cunning - just like your twin brothers. Maybe even a bit like me. Like Jill." He kissed her again - this time on her lips, deeply. "You are like no one else in the world, Gin. And even if you can't, I can see her in you."

She bit her lip. "Then I'll still love you. No matter what, I'll still love you."

His expression was unreadable. "I can't say for sure. I can't tell you what you'll feel."

Ginny hesitated for a moment, in a way that told him she was really thinking deeply about something. Her eyes were focused on the collar of his shirt where the thread had come loose. "I remember seeing you in my dream one night while you were away. I had come to see you in the middle of the night. It was right after the baby was born, a long long time ago. Do you remember?"

"That was the first time I ever kissed you." His smile faded just slightly as something suddenly dawned on him. "And that means you know, don't you?" he asked, his throat dry.

"Harry has been dead for years," she said with a bit more ease than what made him feel comfortable. "And I also know that you saved my life - mine and my son's."

"Please don't make me sound noble. I'm not, and I never could be."

She smiled sleepily. "If you say so."

And then she was asleep before he knew it.

…

Several weeks flew by, and still Draco had been unable to get them any closer to their goal. They had been traveling west and were now in the uppermost part of California. Despite stopping every now and again to look for people from their past, they had had no such luck. Meeting Luna and the twins, he realized, was serendipitous, and the likelihood that they would find every other fallen member of their society, scattered over the United States of America was so unlikely that it was almost not worth the effort.

The problem was, they had nowhere else to go now.

Ginny looked down at her belly. It was still flat and inconspicuous, but she had begun to wear Draco's old shirts to cover up any sign of increased size. She was, by nature, tall and athletically slender, and during her past pregnancies, she had not been able to hide the rounding of her stomach for long at all.

"Gwen, are you alright?" Draco asked. The kids were awake, and they had wordlessly made the decision to continue referring to each other with their Muggle names in front of Jill and Jeremy.

"I have to tell the kids," she muttered under her breath.

He sighed. "Right now?"

"No. Christmas maybe?"

"Oi!" He smacked himself in the head. "I bloody forgot all about Christmas."

She sighed and rested her head in her hands. "Our poor kids."

She noticed the sign out the window that welcomed them to Oregon, and as she did, her fingers grew numb and chills began to trail up her spinal cord. Ginny closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Stop the car!"

Draco didn't hesitate as he pulled over onto the side of the interstate. "What - what is it?"

"I'm not.. I'm not quite sure."

She looked in the back seat briefly. Her kids were wide-eyed as they realized that the car had stopped moving. Far ahead, she could see blue skies and a beautifully green terrain, and for a moment, even she could not understand what it was that she had been sensing. Draco was looking at her intently as her eyes surveyed the surrounding area.

And then she saw it.

Several hundred feet in the distance stood a figure, hooded and cloaked in all black, standing in the center of the highway.

"Turn the car around!" she shouted. "Turn the car around!"

"We're on the highway. We have to go on the other side of the divider to go back…"

"No!"

The hooded figure had begun approaching them, and she could sense the blood in her veins running cold. She didn't need to know who the person was in order to be aware that they were a threat to her family.

"If you can't turn around, then drive as fast as you can!"

Draco - who felt as though this attempt was fruitless, though he hadn't a better plan himself - quickly put the car back in drive and sped along the highway. It only took a few moments for him to see what she was seeing. Except he could go just a bit further. His entire body could sense exactly who the man was.

"Gwen," he said, somewhat urgently, "Gwen, it's… it's going to be okay."

But she couldn't hear him. She had climbed into the back seat with the children. He couldn't hear what she was saying, but he could see that she had wrapped an arm around each of them and had pulled them in close.

Even though briefly he could find himself wanting to smile at his family, he had to concentrate on the road. The cloaked man up ahead had fearlessly begun walking closer and closer to the car, despite Draco's increased speed. And then suddenly, it felt as though the air had been released from all four tires, and the car had come to a screeching, sudden halt.

Draco could feel his heart pounding in his chest as the man used his wand to completely remove the driver's door from the side of the car. He could feel himself being pulled from the vehicle by the collar of his shirt - an action that both terrified him and felt eerily familiar. Even once his feet were on solid ground, the strength of the larger man's grip on his neck made him feel nearly as though he was going to be choked to death.

"Draco," said the man's silky, mocking voice as his free hand removed his hood to reveal long, flowing blond hair. "Aren't you going to introduce me to my grandchildren?"

He fought to regain his composure, though he was in a distinctly undignified position. Even if he could not look, he knew that his wife and children were looking on at the two men in fear and confusion. But Draco was not going to let it show. He kept his nose in the air and steadied his breath as he spoke.

"Hello, Father."