Hermione and Kate didn't speak on the trip back to the elevator. Hermione found it odd that her youngest daughter wasn't bubbling with joy at the prospect of having a job the moment she was out of Hogwarts. Tonks had been very impressed with Kate's reflexes and commented on them, causing Hermione to beam with joy.

Auror had been Ron's dream, until he grew bored with it after there wasn't much to do but chase after Mundugus Fletcher who had stolen three hundred orange cats and hid them out in an old warehouse. Ron still had some scars that weren't healed from his last Auror encounter. He went in the very next morning and quit, looking for a job elsewhere.

When he came home and reported to Hermione what he had done, she had been completely dumbfounded.

"But Ron!" she cried. "Being an Auror was your dream!"

"I know," Ron said moodily, "but, really, what was there to do?" He rubbed his thumb over the only wound he received in the War. "Tonight we chased old Dung Fletcher into a warehouse filled with hundreds of cats. I'm talking tons of them. What he planned to do with them I'm not sure."

Hermione pursed her lips together.

"I know that me being out of a job for a little while is going to be costly-"

"Don't worry about it," Hermione said immediately. "After the baby gets here we can both look for jobs." She kissed the top of his head.

"Oh, thanks, Hermione," Ron said gratefully. "I just couldn't stay in the job."

"You were too old for that crap?"

"No, much too young."

He only waited a month before he heard whispers that the Cannons keeper, Dugan Mulroy, had decided to leave in hopes that his career as a male model would take off. Ron had been more than pleased and quickly packed a bag and headed over to their home field. He and a thousand other men and women waited in line for their chance. When it came to Ron's, his stomach was in such a tight knot he was sure he was going to be laughed off the field.

However, they had seen promise in him and, after being placed into a lessening group, it was just he and another man from Romania, who missed one ball, while Ron managed to keep them all out. He had been asked to join the team.

"You're quiet," Hermione commented, pushing the button, causing the elevator doors to close in front of them. "Penny for your thoughts."

"Just…thinking," Kate replied, not taking her eyes off of her reflection from the gleaming silver doors. She saw Hermione nod, though Hermione did not look at her daughter's reflection.

Kate was thinking hard.

The hat had told her that her mother was ditsy. Hermione wasn't ditsy at all. And now she found that her birth certificate, the one with her name on it, wasn't the original. A painful knot had arrived, settling deep inside her stomach. She felt as though she was going to scream out loud and demand her mother explain everything to her.

"I can't wait to get home and see your dad," Hermione said happily.

"Right," Kate nodded. "My dad."

OooooooO

When they arrived home, Max and Madelyn were bickering loudly throughout the house. Apparently, Madelyn had decided that a slight teasing was in order for her dear older brother and kept at him for an hour before he snapped and fired back.

They had both attempted to hex each other, both had tried to physically beat the other one to admit they were wrong, or to bellow mercy.

"What is going on here?" Hermione cried furiously. "Your father is going to be home any minute and you're wrecking the place! Both of you, into separate corners and clean up the mess. I mean it."

"You can't-"
"Oh, just watch me, young lady," Hermione snarled, whipping around to glare at her. Madelyn jumped and quickly began doing as she was told.

"Mum, can I talk to you a moment?" Max asked, stepping past Madelyn, who was bent over repairing a lamp, and kicked her butt hard.

"Ouch!" she cried, clamping her hands over it. She instantly went for her wand, but Kate stepped in front of it and kicked it out of reach. "Hey!"

"Don't make things worse. Be a better person. Rise above it," Kate instructed.

"You're right," Madelyn conceded. She bent down, picked up her wand and turned Max's head into that of a pig. Hermione let out a piercing scream, causing Madelyn to burst into laughter. Kate whirled around and gaped at what used to be her brother's head.

"Madelyn, I thought you said I was right!"

"You are right," she replied, "I'm just not that big of a person." She shrugged and flopped back onto the couch and smirked at Kate. "I love having magic now!"

Kate rolled her eyes, forgetting completely how unbelievably uneasy and furious she felt. She spent the rest of the hour sitting on the couch giggling wildly with her sister as Hermione worked on the tedious task of putting Max's head back.

Max attempted to swear and curse and scream his head off at Madelyn, but all that came out was wild squealing, which just made her laugh harder. Hermione was beside herself with fury at her eldest daughter and didn't bother to hide it.

"When are you going to grow up, Madelyn? You're eighteen years old, not twelve! Neither of your other siblings feel the need to cast magic around as you do. Grow up!"

Madelyn rolled her eyes.

Finally, after what seemed a lifetime, Max's face reappeared. Hermione heaved a great sigh before being shoved out of the way as Max lunged at Madelyn. She sidestepped him, causing him to tumble onto the coffee table. He let out a muffled groan before getting to his feet again.

"I'm going to kill you," he snarled, reaching for his wand. Madelyn stuck out her tongue at him. He sent a hex hurtling across the room. She moved out of the way just in time. The yellow hex collided with the wall, leaving a scorch mark the size of a quaffle.

"Oh!" Hermione cried, throwing her hands around her eyes. "Maxwell Arthur Weasley, that better come off out of the-"

Madelyn had been hit with a hex, causing her teeth to turn a ghastly shade of yellow and brown. They started falling out.

"Max, I'm gowing to kwill you!" she bellowed, holding her hands around her mouth. She raised her wand and aimed. Calling out the first thing that came to mind, the spell, which had been misspoken whizzed through the room, bouncing off lamps and picture frames before it smacked Max in the face. He toppled onto the ground.

"Stay still, you," Hermione barked at Madelyn. She repaired her teeth with the wave of a wand. "Max, you cut that out right this-"

Madelyn flung herself across the room resembling a person body flopping into a pool and landed upon her brother with a great, "Umph!" from him.

"Ouch," he bellowed, holding his eye. "Your bony elbow knocked right into it!"

Madelyn stopped. "Sorry," she said.

He wrapped his arm around her neck and held her in a vice while Hermione watched anxiously from the sidelines screaming for them to cut it out before someone gets hurt.

"You're choking me," Madelyn cried. Max didn't let up. "I'm dying!" she bellowed, slapping and punching any inch of him she could find. Finally, she bent down and sunk her teeth into his flesh. He let out a yelp and released her, causing her to slide a few feet.

"You little cheater!" he said in shock, rubbing his arm where her indent was steadily forming.

"I didn't cheat," she threw back, pushing her messed hair out of her face.

"You did, too," Max replied. "April 7, 2008, we made a rule that no scratching, biting or hair pulling was to take place between sibling fights because they were cheap, rude and wimpy."

"Right," Madelyn said, nodding as she remembered the exact time they had made the rules. In fact, Max had even drawn up an official document for both Kate and Madelyn sign. He hadn't turned ten yet, Madelyn had not yet turned nine and Kate was not yet seven. "Well, then-" she said before Max flung a curse at her. It hit her square in the chest and she toppled to the couch with a scream.

"That's it!" Hermione screamed, finally reaching for her own wand. "Your father is going to be home any minute and I will not have him subjected to your fighting and screaming and hexing, do you understand me? Now, Madelyn, clean up this mess, Max, you help her and Kate, go get something in the oven so it smells nice in here." Hermione was breathing heavily. Her three children immediately obeyed, each scampering over to their other tasks.

A while later as they sat and ate a rushed dinner, Kate looked around the table staring in turn at her mother and siblings. In fact, if she thought about it, hadn't she always thought that maybe she just didn't belong with them? Wasn't that thought always at the back of her mind that maybe she wasn't who she thought she was? Hadn't she almost hoped that someone would turn to her and realize that they had misplaced her?

Why would she think that?

It all started when she was little. Max and Madelyn always teased her about it, causing her to have anxiety attacks and the prime age of six. Before she began to believe it herself and almost embrace it, she always feared someone was going to come and take her away from them.

Also, there had apparently been a fire in their home when she turned six months and all her pictures from before then had disappeared. Max had claimed that the fire never happened, and there had been so proof of it to disprove what he was saying so she naturally believed that. In fact, there wasn't a single baby picture of her before she turned six months. Her first picture was missing and was indeed replaced by her youngest picture, which was at six months.

"Mum," Kate ventured quietly from across the table, "was there really a fire when I was a baby?"

Hermione looked up from her dinner, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Of course, darling, why would you ask?"

"No reason," Kate replied, looking over at her brother who was continuing his dinner. Of course he wouldn't be able to remember what he had said ten years ago. "It's just-" she hesitated. She wondered if she told her mother exactly why she thought so that her mother may explode all over her brother again and there would be more fighting. "I was in that old room with all the records and I saw that my birth certificate had been reinstated and I just wo-"

"Katharine Aurora Weasley, I absolutely forbid you to go into that room again!" Hermione bellowed across the table. Kate froze, as did Max and Madelyn. They were staring at her in shock. "I mean it, I forbid it! You were specifically told not to enter that room and you-"

"Mum." Madelyn's quiet voice broke apart Hermione's rant. Kate was looking at Hermione in complete shock and disbelief. Her mother had never yelled at her like that. She turned her head towards her brother whose fork had clattered onto his plate in shock and who was now staring at their mother as Kate was sure she was: complete surprise.

Hermione's face was bright red, her hair seemed electrified; her eyes were unusually bright and currently rooted onto her plate as though trying to make it disappear from her sight. Her hand were balled into fists on the table.

"Mum," Kate said weakly, near tears. She gulped. "I'm sorry, I didn't-I mean…I forgot," she whispered.

"It's fine," Hermione said tightly. "Now you know."

No one spoke for the rest of dinner. Madelyn assisted her mother in cleaning the kitchen while Max tidied up the living room. Kate sat on the couch and watched him dust the muggle way.

"You missed a spot," she said quietly, pointing at a spot on the coffee table.

"Why don't you get off your lazy arse and do it, then?" he replied not unkindly. He continued to stroke the towel around the directed area.

"Why did she yell at me like that?" she asked weakly, still feeling as though any moment she was going to start crying.

Max shrugged and looked unconcerned.

"Who knows," he said. "You know mum. She wouldn't even let me go alone to Diagon Alley alone until I was of age."

"But," Kate persisted, "she completely freaked!"

Max shrugged again. "Just don't go in there anymore."

Kate felt the usual tweak of curiosity. He had said the forbidden words. Now she felt as though she had to see what was in that room. If Max and Hermione were both telling her to stay out of it, then she needed to see what was in there.

The front door opened.

"Hello, family, I'm home!" Ron called.

"Dad!" Madelyn screamed, running out of the kitchen and leaping into her father's arms. "We missed you! No one cooks for us!"

Ron, who had stumbled when Madelyn leapt into his arms, balanced himself on the wall. She took herself away from him so that the others got get to him.

Kate hugged him tightly, breathing in his sense and smell. She smiled despite her anxiety and shook the rain out of his hair.
"You smell like smoke," she commented quietly. His ears turned red and he put a finger to his lips before turning to Hermione, who also leapt into his arms.

"I'm so glad to see you!" she wailed, tears in her eyes.

The three Weasley's left the room to let them have a moment alone. However, it was to Kate's much discomfort when she saw whispering furiously in the kitchen. Once or twice they threw a glance at the three of them, Max and Madelyn fighting over a word puzzle and she staring at them.

When Ron caught her glancing their way, he pulled Hermione out of sight. Once again Kate's curiosity was peaked. They were acting weird. On edge. She wondered if it had anything to do with her birth certificate. And if so, then what?

"Promise me."

Ginny didn't say anything for a moment. She was too busy staring at the fire to really understand the seriousness of what he was saying.

"Huh? I'm sorry, Harry," she said, trying to shake her head clear. He didn't seem to mind, in fact, he seemed grateful to say it again. He took her hand in his.

"Promise me if something happens you'll keep on living as though I was still here," he repeated, watching her face carefully. For a moment he thought she was going to slap him.

"Fine," she snapped. "And if I die I want you to go on living as though I weren't dead either."

"Ginny-"

"What?" she barked. "I have to go on living and pretend that you were still alive and well but it would be alright if you decided to stick a spear through your neck and fling yourself off a bridge? I don't think so, Potter."

"Oh, come on-"

"Should I not even attend your funeral? I don't want it to interfere with my day or something-"

"Ginny!"

"What?" she cried.

"Never mind," he snapped.

"No, what?" she asked, her patience returning.

"I just don't want you to do something stupid because of me, that's all."

"Harry, I don't think you understand this, do you? If you died I would have no reason to live again. Why can't you understand that you are everything to me. The thought of never seeing you again-" she broke off, tears hot in her eyes her throat constricted with tears. "It makes me sick. I can't breathe thinking about losing you." She started sobbing now, small sobs. They quickly escalated until she felt as though she were going to burst in pain. Harry quickly came to sit next to her, comforting her.

"Alright," he whispered. "I won't make you promise me."

"Harry, let's make a pact," she said some minutes later.

"Like what?" he asked cautiously. "I'm not going to have to cut my finger and smear blood all over the carpet, am I?"

"No," she replied seriously.

"Then, what?"

"If one of us dies, what if the other comes and joins them?" Ginny said hesitantly.

"Oh, Ginny, how morbid!" Harry snapped, pushing him off of her and standing up, his entire body shaking with rage. "I will not stand here and listen to you talk about killing yourself-"

"Harry! Face it! If you're dead then you have no control over what I do, not that you do now, but you can no longer make me feel guilty. Is it so bad that I want to spend the rest of my life with you?"

"No, but-"

"No buts, Harry Potter," she said sternly. "You know where I stand. If you die I'm coming with you and that's that. You don't have to come with me, I will completely understand if you want to spend your life here on Earth, and I would never ask you to kill yourself."

"Ginny, listen to yourself! You sound nuts!"

But as the days went on he thought about it. What would he do if something happened to Ginny? He would have no one else to turn to. Everyone seemed to have broke up into pairs. Ron and Hermione had each other, Mrs. and Mr. Weasley had been married over twenty years, and Remus and Tonks were currently working their way through an engagement of their own. Even the other five Weasley brothers had found themselves wives.

Who would Harry have all to himself?

"I'll do it."

"I'm sorry?" Ginny asked from the Burrow's kitchen table. He looked her dead in the eye and repeated, "I'll do it." She never asked what he meant, and they never spoke of it again.

Almost a year later news spread that Harry Potter had been killed. It was Ron and Hermione who broke the news to her, unsure of how she was going to take it. They themselves were in pain and suffering from sorrow, but she could think of them no more.

Leaving a brief note to all her loved ones, Ginny Weasley dressed in her best outfit, and got into bed. Her chest heaving with sobs of loss and anger, she let her head rest against the pillow.

She sat for a moment, contemplating everything that had happened in their relationship. Harry had broken up with her over the summer of her sixth year. He had tried with all his might to avoid her during the summer, to no avail. On the night of Bill's wedding, she cornered him outside of his bedroom, shoved him into the room and locked the door.

There they talked for hours, each expressing their own concerns. Once convinced that Harry understood she was going no where, she proved it to him by allowing him to have her completely in every way possible. Four days later they made a suicide pact.

Ginny raised the wand to the tip of her head and whispered, "Avada Kedarva."

Mrs. Weasley found her an hour later while cleaning around the house. They rushed her to St. Mungos, but it was of no gain. Ginny Weasley had successfully committed suicide.

Meanwhile, Harry Potter had come out of a battle between he and Voldemort severely injured, bleeding, hurt, but victorious. His mind was on nothing but getting back to the burrow and reuniting with Ginny. His thoughts were on nothing but her.

He didn't take the news of her death well. His guilt was so large and so overpowering that he could no longer stand the sight of himself. Armed with nothing but his wand, Harry Potter blasted apart anything he could aim at. Once he felt he had ruined all of his things, he began to take apart his body. He hexed himself, gladly accepting another pain, another reason to hurt than to admit Ginny was dead.

He hate Ron and Hermione for telling Ginny he was dead. They couldn't have known what she was going to do. He himself had forgotten and, though they never knew, Ginny herself had forgotten. She could not bear the thought of life without him. She didn't do it for any other reason.

Harry had asked them to spread the news he was dead. He wanted everyone to believe he had died in battle. Even Voldemort thought Harry was dead. He hadn't been prepared at all for the Final Battle.

Once Harry felt he could no longer stand to breathe or to feel the weight of his guilt he took his wand and prepared to do just as Ginny had done. That was until a small, nagging voice crept back into his mind.

It was a memory of sitting in the Common Room. He was with Ron and Hermione.

"You know," Hermione had said, "the only drawbacks of wizards is that they aren't able to detect muggle medicine."

Harry hesitated before creeping into Hermione's drawer and locating a bottle of sleeping pills. Locking himself in his bedroom, he laying down on the bed, closed his eyes and waited to see her face again, to hear her voice.

There was a bright light over his head.

Very faintly he could here, "Harry…Harry…"

He tried to open his eyes but they were heavy. All he wanted to do was sleep forever, because when he was asleep he didn't have to face that he messed up, that it was his fault that Mrs. Weasley's only daughter was dead. He didn't have to deal with the fact that he killed the only person who ever loved him the way Ginny did.

Harry felt a dull pressure in his throat. It was a bit painful at first, but he fell asleep again. When he woke up, he was lying in a hospital room.

Ron and Hermione were in the corner. Hermione looked at Harry sadly. Tears were brimming over in her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak but Harry held his hand up.

"Please, Hermione," he whispered with a ragged breath. "Don't."

He closed his eyes in defeat; he was unsuccessful in committing suicide.

OooooooooO

Hermione let the memory swirl around in the basin as she peered into it sadly. She blinked back tears. She had gotten this memory from Harry after he had fallen asleep. She kept going back to it, kept forcing herself to relive it over and over again.

It had been so simple for Harry to decide that life had gotten too awful and to try and kill himself. Hermione would probably have done the same thing in his position. However, it was far more difficult for her to pack up and leave. She had children who counted on her to stay with them, to be their strength.

Her guilt had come to overpower her at times, rendering her unable to move, sometimes unable to breathe, to think, to stand up straight. She didn't know about the pact they had to each other, and how could she? Harry told her not to tell Ginny, but she hadn't listened to him. What is she was taken in and questioned? At least then she would be able to say that Harry Potter was dead as everyone else thought. Ron agreed with her. They told her. She killed herself. It was all their fault.

She couldn't bear the thought of what she did. She had killed her best friend. She had killed her husband's little sister. She had killed her best friend's love. She had ruined the Weasley family. She had ruined Harry's life.

Harry wouldn't talk to them. She was sure that he hated them. She couldn't stand to look at him. He could see it in his eyes. He could see the hurt the anger, the look of ultimate betrayal upon his face.

He had screamed at them until he was hoarse. "Why didn't you listen to me?" he screamed across the Burrow's kitchen. "I told you not to tell her! You promised me!"

The Weasley's hadn't been told of the pact that Harry and Ginny made. In fact, Hermione didn't even know about it until she read the note Ginny had written to her. Oh, how she crumpled, and how she sobbed. Days on end.

She fallen to the ground on her knees, begging for forgiveness from Ginny and Harry. Praying to whomever listened that she would be forgiven and that someone would make it right. And so, even though she knew she shouldn't, she agreed with Ginny. She allowed herself and Ron to be trapped into another mistake.

How many times had it almost come out? How many times had they had to Obliviate their own children to make them forget what happened? How many times had she made to tell him what they did? To confess to him everything, not that he already didn't know.

He had to have known. How could he not be aware of what they had promised Ginny? He should have figured it out, even if no one else around them realized what they had promised her when it happened.

They had been stupid to agree to it. They had been completely brainless to have gone along with it, to pretend and lie and scheme those they loved.

"Hermione, I don't know what else to do…"

It haunted Hermione. She heard it over and over again. She heard herself agreeing to it, allowing them to accept it into their life.

"He's dead, Ginny. He died in battle. I'm so sorry…"

Hermione clenched her eyes shut. She should have known. She should have realized what was going to happen. How could she have been so stupid? She should have listened to Harry.

"Hermione, what's the matter?"

She didn't answer. She turned her head and let it rest on her husband's chest and sobbed. She cried for her children who never knew and Ron's family whom she had hurt and for Harry who wouldn't talk to them anymore. And most of all she cried for her, for who was going to be affected the most when the pain she was going to feel when it all came out. The betrayal that was going to come.

Kate had almost found out today. The thought paralyzed her with fear. How would her children look at them when they found out they lied to them?

And so, Ron and Hermione lay there, grasping onto each other for support, for comfort and for confirmation that they did the right thing.

It was funny, Hermione thought. Success was supposed to be held for something someone worked towards and wanted more than anything. To be successful. Success.

It boggled Hermione's mind that someone who managed to kill themselves was successful.

"What should we do?" Hermione sobbed.

"I think we have to tell them," Ron replied softly. Hermione let out a squeak of fear wiped her tears away.

"They're going to hate us," she moaned.

"We promised each other that when they started getting suspicious we'd tell them," Ron reminded her firmly. "Remember?"

"Of course I do," Hermione snapped. "I just-How will they ever forgive us?"
"If we tell them it'll be easier than if we didn't," Ron said, pulling Hermione back down onto the pillows. "At least it's coming from us, their parents."

"Right," Hermione whispered, "their parents."

A/N: Read and review. Thanks.