Chapter 6:

Harry opened the door to Remus' old bedroom. There wasn't much left since he had moved in with Tonks, but there was still some cleaning to be done.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked from behind him. He spun around, clearly shocked by the company.

"I'm gonna get started on cleaning out Remus' room while Teddy's down for his nap."

"I'll help you." It was a statement, not a suggestion, and Harry knew better than to argue with her, and yet, he did.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, like I have anything better to do." She slipped past him and entered the room. He quickly followed her.

"We should make two piles, keep and throw away." She nodded. "Don't throw out anything that has to do with the Order or anything Andromeda might want."

"Got it." Harry started on the dresser while Hermione drifted over to the desk. She shuffled through a stack of papers on top. "Harry, take a look at what I found." She handed him the papers.

"They're letters from Remus to Tonks." He scanned them over briefly. " 'I can't stand not knowing if you're safe or not. Please let me know as son as you can. I don't care what you say, I don't care how much you push me away, I'll always care about you in some way,'" he read aloud as Hermione read over his shoulder.

"He kept them, so he must have cared too," she whispered.

"Keep all of these for Andromeda and Teddy when he's older."

"I will." She went back to work, sorting through all of the papers on Remus' old desk. Every time she put something in the trash pile, she felt a pang of guilt. She was condensing someone's life to a few boxes that would be stored in the attic for years until someone finally remembered that they were there and brought them out for a few measly hours to reminisce on the past. Sometimes life just wasn't fair.

Just as Ginny slid under the covers that night, a horribly pained scream tore through the air from Hermione's room. In a flash, she was out of bed. She pounded up the stairs to Ron and Harry's rooms.

"Ron, Harry! Wake up!" Both boys appeared in their respective doorways, ready for the worst.

"What is it?"

"What's wrong?"

"It's Hermione, she's screaming, and I don't know why." Ron shoved past his sister and ran downstairs. She and Harry ran after him.

Hermione was curled up in a fetal position sobbing while Ron desperately struggled to wake her up from her nightmare.

"it's a fake, we found it," she sobbed. Harry stood in the doorway with Ginny. "Ron!"

"'Mione, you're safe, wake up." Hermione's eyes flew open. Her head whipped around as she got her bearings. Tears still rolled down her cheeks. Ron gently stroked her hair. "It's okay, it's okay, it was only a dream," he cooed.

"No it wasn't, I saw her face." It dawned on Harry what she was talking about, and he decided that he and Ginny should probably leave.

"Come on, Gin," he said in a low voice as he tried to pull her out to the hallway. She jerked away. "Let's go Ginny." His tone was more forceful. He grabbed her upper arm firmly and pulled her out to the hall, closing the door behind them.

"Why did you pull me out?" she demanded, clearly seething and wishing she had her wand with her at that exact moment.

"So Hermione can have some space." Ginny crossed her arms over her chest.

"I want to know why Hermione's so upset. I'm sick and tired of being left out!"

"Fine, we'll go up to my room and talk." She laced her fingers with Harry's and followed him up to his room. Truthfully, she was surprised that he had finally buckled.

Meanwhile, Ron sat on Hermione's bed with his arms wrapped around her as tightly as he could without making her feel uncomfortable. She was still pretty shaken up.

"Don't leave me," she said quietly into his chest.

"I won't, I'll be right here with you."

"I could see her face, laughing at me. It seemed so real." Ron rubbed her arm and buried his face in her hair.

"Bellatrix is dead now, Mum killed her. She can't touch you anymore." Hermione buried her face in the nape of his neck.

"Will you stay here with me tonight?" Her question was muffled because of his skin.

"Of course. Are you ready to go back to sleep?" She nodded. Ron maneuvered himself and Hermione under the blankets and closed his eyes. Once her breathing evened out, he allowed himself to relax and succumb to sleep himself.

Harry sat cross-legged on his bed across from Ginny. Teddy was fussing in his crib, so she got up and held him in her arms.

"Tell me what happened," she said firmly as she sat back down and put Teddy down on the bed between her and Harry.

"It's a long story." She shrugged.

"I've got time." He sighed and began his story from the beginning, Bill and Fleur's wedding.

It took Harry nearly an hour to tell Ginny everything. She listened in mostly silence; only adding gasps or murmurs of concern at the appropriate places. She couldn't believe how much had happened while she was at Hogwarts. Now it made sense. Harry, Ron and Hermione had made her stay behind for a reason. No matter how much she had wanted to be with them (mostly Harry), she probably wouldn't have made it out alive.

"Well, that's everything," Harry said once he was done. Ginny sat in silence for a few more seconds while she wrapped her mind around everything he had just told her. He reached over and gently stroked her cheek with his thumb. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, uh, yeah. I just didn't know." Her voice was barely audible.

"Now you do. We've all been through a lot; including you." Ginny glanced over at Teddy, who had fallen asleep about halfway through the story. His hair turned to a familiar shade of bubblegum pink.

"Harry look." Harry looked over at his sleeping godson. "Do you think he'll remember Remus and Tonks?"
"Probably not."

"Oh." She looked away. He scooted towards her and kissed her forehead softly.

"We'll make sure he knows about them though, okay?" She nodded.

"I'm going to go to bed." She gave Harry a tender kiss on the lips before planting a loving kiss on Teddy's forehead and leaving. Harry sat up for a few more minutes sinking into deep thought of his parents. A small squeak from Teddy brought him crashing back to reality. He put his godson to bed and went back to bed himself.