A/N: I don't own Harry Potter.

Hello! I would like to thank you all for the nice reviews you've sent! I know the idea is a bit eccentric but bear with me. Hehe. Oh, and someone asked if this was for a SIYE challenge – yep, it was. Well, anyway, here's the second chapter! Enjoy!

Hera's Helping Hand

Chapter 2: Breakfast, Grandchildren and Kisses

"Mummy, we're hungry..."

It was to a very peculiar feeling indeed that Ginny was woken up to in the morning. She discovered that she was lying on her back, which she found a bit unsettling, especially since the norm for her was to lie face down on the bed. When she attempted to turn over to her side, she found a strange mass constraining her movement, so she tried turning over to her other side, but again the "mass" got in the way. Confused, she tried to sit up and found that it was with much difficulty that she managed to do so. Troubled, she looked down and almost cried out in alarm.

It took her a good few moments to try and recall where her bulging tummy came from, but that didn't make her feel any better about it. She remembered that a voice had woken her up, and she looked around to see who it was. Her two "children" sat at the foot of her bed, looking rather peeved.

"Good morning," she said uncertainly.

James leaned forward on the bed, looking at her imploringly. "We're hungry, mum. We tried to get dad to make us something to eat, but he wouldn't wake up," he whined.

Ginny frowned. Harry woke up at the slightest of noises, so he was probably just plainly ignoring the children, refusing to believe the reality of things. Quite childish of him, really. Sighing, she pushed the duvet away and swung her feet off the side of the bed. "Where's your grandma?" she asked. She felt weird just saying that.

"Everyone's still sleeping," Lily answered.

Ginny forced her self to get up from her soft mattress and she walked over to the children. She caught a glimpse of herself in the dressing table's mirror, and she winced. Oh my goodness. Am I waddling? I look like a fat duck! Harry will never even look at me now...

Miserable and wheezing from the weight of her engorged stomach, she led the way down to the kitchen. The absence of the bustling kitchen scene struck her as strange, and she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. She groaned when she saw that it was 5 am in the morning. Figures. She managed a bright smile before turning to look at the kids. "So, what would you like for breakfast?" she inquired.

James's eyes were wide. "We can have anything we want?" he said breathlessly.

"Well...I guess," Ginny replied, feeling like she was somehow being tricked.

"Anything?" he pressed on, and she managed a small nod. He grinned, his face gleaming with the effort of trying to suppress his glee. "I want ice-cream!"

Lily bounced in her seat. "And I want waffles!" she declared.

"Ice-cream? Waffles?" she repeated. "Hold on just a minute! You can't have those for breakfast!"

"But you just said that we could have anything we wanted!" James protested. "You said so! You did! You did!"

Ginny felt cornered; she did say they could have anything. Still, she wasn't going to let a seven-year old trick her into letting him have his way. "I did, but ice-cream and waffles do not qualify as breakfast," she said firmly. "I meant that you could have anything from the breakfast category. Ice-cream and waffles fall into the dessert category."

James looked rather disconcerted, and Ginny thought it was amazing how much he looked like Harry at that moment. She almost wanted to give him and his sister what they wanted, but no: she was a mother, and she had to be firm when dealing with her kids. About an hour later, however, she wished she had let them have it their way; she never knew how difficult it was to prepare a decent, healthy breakfast. She burned the toast and added too much milk to the eggs, and she had almost burned the sausages if Mrs. Weasley hadn't jumped to the rescue.

"You could've woken me up, dear," she admonished her gently, as she tipped the sausages into the children's plates. They started wolfing them down, and Molly looked fondly at them before turning to her daughter. Ginny thought she saw her cringe a bit at the sight of her bump, and remembered bitterly how her mother had cried out in shock when she first saw her.

"I'm not really pregnant, mum," she assured her quietly.

Molly looked flustered. "Of course not, dear. What a silly thing to say," she murmured, but she didn't to meet her eye as she rinsed the saucepan in the sink. "Would you like some scrambled eggs, children?"

Ginny decided she would wash up while the kids had their breakfast. When she reached the staircase, however, she crossed paths with Harry. He tried to move past her, but with her bump being so big, he didn't know how he could manage it without being squished against the wall. Ginny started to move to one side to let him pass, but for some reason she ended up falling against him. She reckoned it wouldn't have been too bad if her stomach hadn't been in the way. In fact, it would've gotten her a hug. But it ended up with Harry falling back with Ginny on top of him.

"Oof!"

Ginny was humiliated. She struggled to push herself away from Harry, who was now looking a little pink in the face. "Sorry," she mumbled, blushing furiously as she finally managed to scramble off of him. "Sorry, Harry."

Once he had managed to stagger away from the staircase, she made a wild dash for her bedroom. She thought she heard Harry call for her, but she didn't care about anything at the moment; she was feeling quite embarrassed to even look at him again. She locked the door behind her and vowed not to get out until those kids and her horrible bump vanished.

Unfortunately for her, Hera's patience was starting to get tested.

---

Harry stared helplessly at Ginny's retreating back. He considered going after her and apologizing to her, but the sharp slam of a door upstairs told him otherwise. He felt rather ashamed of himself. He knew he was acting like a prat, but he couldn't help it. He had never thought of Ginny as anything more than his best friend's little sister, so the revelation that he and Ginny were going to get married and have children was a bit too shocking for him.

He heard someone tutting in the background and he was sure he was going to turn to look into Mrs. Weasley's livid face, instead he found his "daughter" frowning at him. Mrs. Weasley was obviously trying to pretend nothing had happened. "Good morning," he said faintly.

"Aren't you going to kiss and make up?" Lily asked innocently.

Harry blinked, and a tiny cough escaped from Molly's lips. "Sorry?" he croaked.

"Oh, come on, daddy," Lily said coyly. Harry felt a little crept out: did she just wink at him? He looked again and saw that she was just smiling innocently at him. "You always kiss and hug mummy when she's upset. You keep kissing her the whole day! I say you should go and kiss her and tell her you're sorry! Right, Jamie?"

James grunted in reply. He was busy stuffing his face with food. Harry swallowed — what should he say to that? He wasn't able to inform this little girl that he couldn't kiss Ginny because...well, they weren't together. That would be sure to make her feel distressed. The most important thing right now, aside from figuring out how to get them back home, was to keep them happy, whether they were his children or not. He was saved the trouble of trying to come up with a casual reply when Hermione and Ron entered the kitchen. It wasn't surprising to see them bickering.

"Oh, lay off, Ronald," Hermione was saying. "Why do you care about whether or not I marry Viktor?"

"I don't care!" he said heatedly. "I just think that you shouldn't be off marrying celebrities who will dump you the first time they see a woman with bigger-"

"Ron, the children," Harry said weakly. "They shouldn't hear this."

"Oh, sorry, mate," Ron murmured, looking sheepish. He sat down on the table across from the children. "Good morning, kids."

For some reason, Lily looked rather cross with her uncle. "Good morning, Uncle Ronald," she muttered. "By the way, speaking of mornings, Uncle Ronald: yours haven't been too good lately, have they?"

Ron appeared taken aback. "Er...why shouldn't they be?" he asked curiously.

"Well, obviously because you have a lot of children...just like Grandma and Grandpa Weasley," she said, smiling sweetly. "You've left them at the daycare again, haven't you?"

There was an instant uproar. Hermione and Mrs. Weasley immediately pounced on him and were attacking him with questions...and in Hermione's case, scathing remarks. Lily continued to munch on her sausages, but Harry could see a mischievous glint in her eyes which rather scared him.

"Oh, Ronniekins! All those children! How many are they, Lily? How many? Eight? Oh, you're going to make me a very happy grandmother!" his mother squealed, She was hugging him so tightly his face was turning rather red.

Hermione, on the other hand, found this to be a source of amusement. "Eight children, Ron? You get on my case simply because I go to the Yule Ball with Viktor, while you get to have eight kids? Oh, you filthy hypocrite," she hissed.

"Oh, I wonder what their names are," Mrs. Weasley said wistfully. "Lily, you couldn't possibly...?"

"Grandma Weasley, not knowing the names of your own grandchildren!" Lily gasped, sounding horrified.

"You have to excuse my memory, darling..." Mrs. Weasley said hastily.

"Humph. Well, of course there's Willamina, Charlotte, Percivilla, Fredwulfa and Georgina, then there's Ronda, Gindlewald and of course...Harriet," she finished with a flourish.

It looked like Hermione and Molly were exercising a lot of control to stop them selves bursting out with laughter. Hermione clamped her hand over her mouth, but tears had sprung to her eyes because she wouldn't release her laugh, while Mrs. Weasley clutched her side and leaned over the counter. Ron looked positively humiliated, and Harry had to hide his horror at the knowledge that Ron was going to name one of his kids after him.

"Yes...I think I'll go and check on Ginny now. Excuse me..."

Leaving Ron to the mercy of his mother and Hermione, Harry hurried up the stairs to Ginny's room. He knocked at the door and waited for his "wife" to respond. When she wouldn't, he knocked again.

"Ginny, I want to talk to you," he called through the door.

"Talk to me? Or laugh at me?" she retorted.

He sighed. "Look, I know I've been acting like such a spoiled git-" he started.

"Yes," she concurred. "You have been a spoiled git."

Harry scowled. "Right...and if you think I'm a spoiled git, then why on Earth did you marry me?" he shot back. He had come here to apologize, and she was just shutting him off; it was annoying him. "You would think that would drive you away."

"I'm afraid I don't have any control over the actions of my future self," Ginny said calmly. "If my future self decided to marry you, then I unfortunately don't have much saying in the matter."

"The same applies to me, then. If I had any control over my future self's actions, then I wouldn't have asked you to marry me in the first place!" he snapped. However, when he heard the quiet sob on the other side of the door, he wished he could take those words back. He sighed. "Look, Ginny, I'm sorry for the way I've been acting, but this situation is proving rather difficult..."

"Oh, easy for you to say," she sniffed. "You're not the one stuck with a huge belly, you selfish git."

Harry gritted his teeth. "I think we've affirmed that I'm a git earlier during the conversation, so can we let it go?" he pleaded. When she didn't respond, he knocked at the door once again. "Could you please open the door so I can talk to you properly?"

"Oh, fine," he heard her mumble. There was the definite sound of a key turning in its lock, and the door swung open. Ginny stood in the doorway. She seemed to be attempting to fold her arms across her chest, but her bump was getting in the way. Harry thought it was cute, but he contained his smile so she wouldn't take any offence. She finally gave up and put her hands on her hips instead. "Well?"

Harry noticed her red-rimmed eyes and felt rather guilty. "Ginny, I just turned 15, but I already have a lot of weight on my shoulders...and I'm still learning to deal," he said quietly. "I barely come out alive out of my school year, and now those kids...how am I supposed to keep them safe while I'm having trouble keeping myself safe?"

Ginny gave him an amused look. "Silly, you don't believe they're staying, do you? I don't wish to be a mum at fourteen, either. They're going back as soon as we know how to get them back," she told him. She paused a moment. "Also...don't you realise what the existence of those kids means?"

"Erm..."

She smiled warmly at him. "You survive, Harry," she said softly. "You survive and you start a family...regardless of who you start it with."

Harry fell silent. He realised he hadn't actually thought about it that way. He was momentarily numbed with shock. It felt pleasant, but shocking nonetheless. The feeling overwhelmed him and his eyes stung a little. I'm going to survive! I'm going to defeat Voldemort! The sensation was so good he was afraid he might be dreaming. He looked at Ginny for affirmation and she gave him a little nod. Harry couldn't help it; he pulled her into a tight hug and buried his face in her hair.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Suddenly everything seemed brighter by several notches, and the crushing weight on his chest lessened considerably. A word that could be used to describe how he felt could be elated. He was so happy, he didn't even realise how long he'd been holding Ginny until she cleared her throat. Harry released her from his arms and beamed at her. "Thank you," he repeated.

"I only stated the obvious," she murmured, blushing.

He grinned happily. "So, what should we do until the time we figure out how to return the kids to their original time?" he asked her.

"Our best bet is to go on pretending that we're actually their parents, I guess," she answered. "Between you and me, though, our kids are a tad bit naive, aren't they? I mean, I'm almost certain we don't look the same as we are now in the future!"

"Yes, but they're our kids, and I'd love them regardless."

Still, what seemed like a good idea when Ginny suggested it, seemed to be greeted differently by the kids. Well, Lily did, James seemed to be like such a peaceful, quiet child. When Lily saw them walking into the kitchen, hand-in-hand, she let out a squeal of delight.

"Yay! Mummy and Daddy made up! They made up!" she cheered. "Did you kiss?"

"Of course we did," Harry said quickly.

A little too quickly, apparently, because Lily gave them a dubious look. "Really? Well, kiss mummy again, daddy! You can't have enough love; that's what you always tell us!" she chirped. "Kiss her, daddy!"

Harry gave Ginny an uncertain look, but her expression was rather unreadable. You can't have enough love; blimey, I sound like a very cheesy father. He cautiously placed his hands on each of her shoulders, and slowly leaned down towards Ginny's lips. He found he had never appreciated how full and red Ginny's lips were...

Harry thought he didn't really mind pretending to be married to Ginny.

----

"Look, the idiot can't believe his luck. He's almost sucking her lips out," Zeus mumbled between mouthfuls of sausage. "Can we go home now?"

Hera tore her eyes from the sight of Harry and Ginny kissing. "No," she hissed. "This is one kiss. It could mean nothing, and then it could mean everything. We can't leave before we make sure it's the latter. Besides..."

Zeus followed her gaze and saw that she was glaring at a certain Ronald Weasley, who was in turn glaring at Harry and Ginny.

"That brat looks more than ready to stop anything from happening, and I'm not about to go before I've taught him a lesson," Hera said evilly.

"Some goddess you are. Not prejudiced at all."

----

A/N: So? How did you like that chapter? Good? Bad? The next chapter will be the last one! I think I should've mentioned that this was going to be an extremely short story. Ah, well, please review!

- S. N. B.