-Chapter 6-

~*Ginny*~

Hermione has this scar on her left shoulder from the Battle at the Department of Mysteries. It's kind of a starburst pattern. No one knows exactly what it's from or at what point during the battle it happened but it's quite beautiful. I love the feel of it beneath my fingertips. Two weeks before our first Christmas I got my bonus from the paper and smiled, knowing exactly what I was going to do with it. Hermione protested at first but eventually gave in and let me do it. So now thanks to some guy named Matt that a co-worker at the café recommended, I have a red starburst pattern the exact same as her scar tattooed on my left shoulder. And Matt has a black eye for suggesting a threesome after I paid him. After she punched him in the stomach while he was distracted by the pain in his eye socket, Hermione had to alter his memory so there wasn't the possibility of a lawsuit.

Our first Christmas "together" was beautiful. The Christmas before we were still just roommates so we didn't make much of a big deal of it and we spent Christmas at the Burrow anyways. We went all out with decorations and the tree and everything even though it was only the two of us. It just made things feel more home-like and less we've-been-forced-to-move-here-like. I'd been saving for Hermione's present since the day I first walked by the jewelry shop on my way to work to the café. No, it wasn't a ring, that would be too cliché. And besides, she would've expected something like that on Christmas. What was left over in my bonus after the tattoo gave me just enough to buy it. We spent Christmas Eve snuggled on the couch with bluebell flames covering the coffee table and Hermione reading A Christmas Carol. There were three presents under the tree, one to me from Hermione, mine to her, and a box that George and Angelina had sent us. We had tried to open theirs but George had managed to charm it so it couldn't be opened until Christmas.

I awoke the next morning on top of Hermione on the couch. She was on her back and I was on my stomach with my hips between her legs and my head on her chest. One of her hands was covering the book that was resting on my back, the other was still intertwined with my fingers hanging off the couch. The bluebell flames had been extinguished. I smiled and unbuttoned her shirt enough for me to flick my tongue at the space between her breasts and kiss up to her neck. She stirred and opened her eyes to meet mine.

"Merry Christmas, love," I said. She smiled and ran her fingers through my hair.

"Merry Christmas, Gin."

I moved up and gave her a kiss and then rested my head on her shoulder.

"Breakfast now or after presents?" she asked me. I could hear that she was smiling. She knew the answer to the question.

"I think you know that already, Miss Granger. You know I hate waiting to unwrap presents."

She giggled that sweet giggle and kissed my forehead before I sat up.

"Can we at least get some coffee first?"

I sighed. "Okay."

She buttoned her shirt back up and went to the kitchen returning minutes later with two cups of steaming liquid. I had gotten the three gifts from under the tree and put them on the coffee table.

"Two spoonfuls of sugar and a splash of cream," she said, handing me my cup.

"Thanks love. You know me too well," I said. She sat down next to me on the couch and I kissed her cheek. I looked at the box in front of me from her and smiled.

"It's not books," she said with a smile while eyeing her gift. "Too small."

I laughed. "I could've used a shrinking charm to trick you."

"You could've. But you didn't."

"Well go on and find out then."

She picked up the box and carefully undid the wrapping. She looked at the name on the lid and looked up at me, wide-eyed then pulled the lid off and pulled out the treasure inside. It was a silver-heart shaped pendant on a silver chain with both of our birth stones in the heart.

"Oh Ginny…oh sweetheart it's beautiful! Thank you so much!"

I smiled and she leaned over and kissed me then went back to admiring the pendant. I picked up the colorfully and meticulously wrapped package in front of me and tore open the paper and glanced up at Hermione who was looking on in excitement. I looked at the box and saw a picture of what I saw my co-workers at the newspaper always carrying around in their cases.

"It's a laptop!" Hermione squealed. "You don't have to go into the office now to type your articles, you can just do it on here and then save it to a disc and print it off wherever. It's not…I mean it's not the best one out there but it will…"

"Hermione…this is too much," I said. I was shocked. I knew this cost so much more than the necklace and I knew she had to have taken some out of her savings that I told her to never spend on me to get it.

"No, no it's not! I just know how you hate having to go in just to type up your notes and articles and you keep saying that you could use the practice anyways so I made sure to get one with a learning program already installed. And besides, I can use it, too, on days that I don't have enough time at the school or the library to write my papers."

"I…thank you so much 'Mione," I said. I pulled her into a hug. "It's still too much though."

"Nonsense," she said. She pulled away and we both looked at the box from George and Angelina.

I pulled at the lid and it opened, gold sparks shot out startling the both of us. I shook my head. I knew I should've expected something like that from George. In the box was of course a box of assorted merchandise from his store; whiz-bangs, Daydream Charms (his letter said it was "for days when things are less than exciting at work"), and a small skiving snack box ("for days when you just can't stand the Muggles anymore"). There was also a bottle of firewhiskey, a giant box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, two dozen Chocolate Frogs, and two scarves that Angelina had knitted with our initials on them.

We spent the rest of Christmas morning snuggled on the couch and Hermione picked up reading where she had left off the night before. A worker at the library had told Hermione about a program that his church did feeding the homeless a Christmas dinner so we spent the afternoon doing that.

"I want kids, Ginny," she said when we got home that evening and curled up on the couch with a couple glasses of firewhiskey. I sighed. We'd had this conversation before. It was usually after days she'd read to the kids at the library or observed at the hospital in the pediatric ward.

"We can't, Hermione. You know that."

She sighed. "I know. We'd be such good mothers though." She snuggled into my chest.

"If we find out things change then I promise you, we'll do it. We'll adopt or have kids or whatever you want."

I want kids just as much as she does. We both know that we can't though. If we go the sperm donor route then the kid will be born magical and their name will appear on a registry to be accepted to a school and then we'll be found out and it's over. We can't afford to adopt and with me having no Muggle birth records or anything we'd be screwed if we tried that, too. Also, with neither of us having decent paying jobs plus Hermione's student loans we'll eventually have to pay off there's no way we could afford to raise a kid. And we're rarely home and when we are we're exhausted and just want to spend time with each other.