Several hours after they had disappeared from the Gryffindor Common Room with their godson in tow, leaving their friends to their argument, Harry and Ginny found themselves on the dormitory staircase once more, preparing to leave the little bubble of solitude the three of them had so peacefully occupied for what felt to Harry an appallingly short space of time.

"Do we have to go back down?" Harry mumbled softly, his lips brushing over her ear as he pulled her into his arms once more, careful not to upset her hold on their godson, whose amber eyes—the eye's of his father, Remus Lupin—blinked up at them curiously. "I can't help but wish we could stay up here like this forever, just the three of us, no worries, no cares."

"I know," she whispered, resting her soft cheek against his chest for a moment. "But there's no escaping the real world. If we don't rejoin it on our own, it'll hunt us down and drag us back."

She made as though to turn away but Harry didn't release her from his hold, instead spinning her around to face him once more.

"I love you," he said softly, leaning his scarred forehead against her smooth one. "It scares me how much I love you."

"I know," she said again, tilting her chin upwards ever-so-slightly so her lips brushed against his. "Believe me, I know. I feel the same way."

She flashed him a smile, small but undoubtedly genuine, before shifting Teddy to her shoulder and starting down the worn stone stairs, leaving Harry with little choice but to follow in her wake. The scene that met them when they reached the bottom of the staircase, however, was enough to make Harry want to turn tail and scramble his way back up to his dormitory, dragging his girlfriend and their godchild with him.

Arrayed about the Common Room were at least half a dozen witches and wizards, most of whom, with a few noted exceptions, were sporting hair of a fiery red hue and talking so loudly Harry thought it all but a miracle that they hadn't heard them all the way up in the dormitory.

"Oh, Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley cried when she caught sight of them, rushing over to embrace her daughter, who barely had time to disentangle herself from Harry and thrust Teddy into his arms before her mother descended upon her. "We were so worried when we came back to find the Common Room empty and you and Teddy gone! I thought…I thought…."

"Shh, Mum, shh, everything is all right," Ginny murmured soothingly as she returned her mother's embrace. "Teddy and I are both fine; we were just taking a nap in an upstairs dormitory—"

"You could have told someone where you were going and saved the rest of us the trouble of trying to find you," Ron snapped, clearly annoyed, as he glared daggers at Harry, who was unaware of anything he had done that would earn himself the wrath of his best mate.

"You and Hermione saw us leave the room," Ginny said, turning her disbelieving eyes on her brother where he stood with Hermione. "And we wouldn't have had to do that in the first place had the two of you not been sniping away at one other again, so loudly you almost woke Teddy."

"Ron?" Mrs. Weasley asked with a frown, looking at her youngest son expectantly. "Is this true?"

"Don't you try to turn this on us to take away from what the two of you did!" he spluttered at his sister, his pale face bypassing red and turning the spectacular shade of maroon it took on whenever he was particularly angry or embarrassed. Hermione, whose cheeks had begun to glow a bright pink under the combined weight of the stares of all present, looked determinedly down at the garnet and gold carpet as though willing it to rise up and devour her in one fell swoop.

"The only thing we did was take the baby to Harry's dorm for a few hours of rest undisturbed by your grating whine," Ginny shot back, her patience obviously beginning to wear thin. "Just because your mind goes to the gutter at every available opportunity doesn't mean everyone else is the same way!"

Bill, who had been frowning disapprovingly at Harry ever since he had descended from the boys' dormitories with his arms wrapped around his baby sister, looked for a moment as though he were going to open his mouth to speak his agreement with Ron when the sudden tightening of his wife's grasp on his arm from a gentle hold to a death grip made his words die in his throat. Harry did not miss the grateful half-smile Ginny flashed in Fleur's direction, who responded with a wide grin—it seemed the two had grown much closer during Harry's year away, something which could only work in their favor. Perhaps Bill and Ron wouldn't come down on him so hard for dating Ginny with Fleur and Hermione to run interference for them.

"All right, Ron, that is quite enough," Mrs. Weasley admonished absently as she fussed with her daughter's thick red hair, attempting to smooth it back from her forehead.

"Where's George?" Ginny demanded suddenly, moving out of her mother's reach as her eyes scanned every corner and crevice of the Common Room for a sign of the older brother in question, the only one of her siblings, with the exception of Charlie, who was still traveling to England from Romania, who was not currently present.

"No one has seen him for hours," said Percy, who had remained oddly silent throughout the entire exchange. "We were just about to send out a party to search the castle for the two of you when you and Harry came down with Teddy. I think I'll go out and start looking—"

"No, that won't be necessary," Ginny said, chewing her lip in thought. "I think I have an idea where he might be; I'll find him and bring him back."

"I'll go with you," Harry offered hurriedly, not quite relishing the prospect of being left in the same room with Ron, who was now glaring at him murderously, without Ginny's protection.

"No, I'll go alone," Ginny said, and catching sight of her mother and older brothers' faces, hurried to add, "Please. If he is where I think he is and he's avoiding us, it will be easier for me to sneak up on him and bring him back if I'm by myself. I'll be fine, I swear."

Drawing near to Harry, she pressed his hand gently with her own and murmured, so only he could hear her, "I would love for you to come with me, but this is something I have to do on my own, and you should speak with Andromeda."

And rising up on the tips or her toes, she pressed her lips to his cheek, just above the line of his stubble, before ducking her head to place a kiss on Teddy's small forehead beneath his red-tipped fringe. Flashing her family one last reassuring smile, she ducked out through the portrait hole, her back straight and wand drawn. Harry stood quite still for a time after she had left, his eyes lingering on the spot where Ginny had disappeared from view.

"She is such a wonderful girl," said a quiet voice from behind him. "My Dora couldn't have chosen anyone better for Teddy's godmother. You are a very lucky young man. I hope you are aware of it."

"I am," Harry said softly, turning slowly about to find himself face-to-face with Andromeda Tonks, wife of the late Ted, mother to Nymphadora, and grandmother to the orphaned child cradled in his arms.

After this simple exchange an excruciatingly awkward silence stretched on for several long moments, during which the room's other occupants migrated over to stand before the fireplace, loudly discussing the weather and other mundane topics in an attempt to give the bereaved woman and her grandson's godfather some semblance of privacy until their daughter brought back their errant son. Ron, who looked as though he had every intention of staying to listen in, had to be dragged off by Hermione.

Even so, Harry was having great difficulty not only coming up with something to say to her, but looking her in the eye for any length of time. Her face, though he had only seen it once before for a few moments in passing, appeared to have aged rapidly in a way only the wear of great suffering can produce. Her dark eyes, so similar in color and shape to those of her now dead sister, were ringed with purple and entirely devoid of the brightness they had once held. Looking at her was enough to remind Harry once more of the enormity of what they had lost.

"Mrs. Tonks—" Harry began, his voice hoarse as shifted Teddy in his arms to get a firmer grasp on the infant.

"Please," she said gently, cutting him off. "Call me Andromeda."

"Andromeda….I can't—I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am for everything that's happened—for all that you've had taken from you in this war. I wish…I wish…."

Clearing his throat loudly to be rid of the enormous lump that had been steadily forming since the conversation had begun, he soldiered on in a valiant attempt to retain his composure.

"Your daughter and her husband meant more to me—to myself and Ginny—than we can ever say, and we will never forget them or their sacrifice, and we plan on seeing to it that no one else will either. Ginny would like to help you plan the—plan the funerals. And as for Teddy—well, I know nothing will ever fill the void left in his life left by the death of his parents, but she and I would like to be as involved in his childhood as you'll let us. We will always be there, for the both of you—if you ever need anything, anything at all, we want you to know that we're only an owl away."

Andromeda gave him a watery smile and, reaching over, grasped his rough hand with her slender one.

"You are every bit as good as Remus and Dora said. I know you have heard this many a time, but your parents would be truly proud of the man you have become."

She stretched out her arms and Harry automatically surrendered Teddy over to her.

"I shall send you and Ginevra an owl in a few days time," she said quietly before exiting the portrait hole, leaving Harry alone with the Weasleys.

Ginny walked down the once familiar corridors of Hogwarts, marveling once more at the damage the seemingly stalwart castle had sustained during the battle as she wove her way around the large chunks of rubble and sidestepped the decimated suits of armor that littered her path. The shards of glass strewn about the stone floor crunched loudly under the thick soles of her trainers, but she paid most of this little mind, choosing to think instead of her grieving brother and the place she believed he had run to when the pain of losing his twin had become too much for him too bear. But to do that she had delve into her memories, and as she walked she allowed herself to mentally be taken back in time to the day Fred and George had shown her their 'secret spot' at the beginning of her tumultuous first year at Hogwarts when she was feeling lonely and homesick, and they had wanted to cheer her up.

"Where are you taking me?" her eleven-year-old self had demanded warily of her two older brothers, both of whom were wearing grins that would put the Cheshire cat to shame. She sighed—she was having trouble enough keeping up with her classes and making new friends; the last thing she needed was to become the unwitting subject of one of Fred and George's practical jokes.

"Your suspicion wounds us," George said, placing a hand over his heart in faux hurt, his eyes rolling back up into his head.

"Yeah, don't look so anxious, baby sister," Fred had said, ruffling her flaming red hair affectionately with one of his large hands. "We wouldn't pull a prank on you. Ron? Yes. Percy? Most definitely. But never you. We like you to much."

"Not to mention Mum would murder us and make it look like a garden de-gnoming gone awry if she ever found out about it, which she would," George added, his tone jovial as he slung an arm around her narrow shoulders.

"That too," said Fred his smile widening to obscene proportions.

"Well I still want to where it is we're going," she had replied, though the look of concern she had worn mere moments before had been replaced by a small smile had wound its way across her freckled face almost in spite of itself.

"Hold your Hippogriffs," George said, pulling up short and turning to face her. "Before we proceed any further you must swear under pain of ten thousand bat bogey hexes that you will never, ever reveal what we are about to show you to another soul for as long as you live."

Rolling her eyes at her brothers' outrageous antics, she diligently placed her hand over her heart and swore to all of the above before the twins, looking left and right down the corridor to make sure no interlopers were spying on the, they brought her to stand before a very large, very ornate mirror she had noticed several before when running through the halls to her various classes. She blinked in confusion at their reflection.

"You brought me all the way down here to show me my reflection in a mirror?!" she cried lividly, turning on Fred and George with a scowl that would have put their mother to shame.

"What? No!" George hissed, clamping a hand over her mouth to keep her raised voice from attracting unwanted attention. "Will you just give us a second? Merlin!"

He removed his hand from her mouth and she watched in fascination as Fred moved forward and, pulling out his wand, gently tapped the mirror and whispered the words 'speculum deliquesce declaro voster mysteria'. Before her very eyes the glass seemed to melt away, leaving only a stone archway and the tunnel beyond, which Fred and George hastily ushered her into before the glass reappeared behind them.

"Where are we, a secret passageway?" she asked in awe, holding up her wand, it's illuminated tip bathing their surroundings in dim light. She moved forward a few steps and saw that the cavern had partially collapsed in on it self and to reach the rest, one had to maneuver their way around the rubble. Without a second thought she shimmied her way through and gasped at what she saw on the other side: all over the dusty and cobweb-covered walls were beautiful murals whose painted figures moved constantly, acting out the faerie stories of her childhood. She had never seen anything quite like it.

"How did you find this place?" she demanded excitedly, turning to her brothers, who had followed her to the other side.

"Never you mind," Fred said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"Do you like?" George asked.

"Like it? I love it!" she cried, rushing forward to hug them both. "Thank you so much for showing this to me!"

During her first year she had spent large chunks of time hidden away in the secret passageway, watching the murals act out their tales or writing away in her diary. But as the years had worn on and she making friends had come more easily to her, her visits to the enchanted dwindled until, in her third year, she no longer needed a place to hide from her troubles and had stopped coming altogether.

When Ginny reached the enchanted mirror, which had remained suspiciously intact despite the massive concussions the castle had suffered throughout the battle, she pulled out her wand and, after several unsuccessful attempts, properly repeated the incantation and watched as the glass melted away before her very eyes. As Ginny wriggled her way through the rocks and other fallen debris, she briefly wondered if she were mad to think George had fled here—if she could hardly squeeze her petite frame through the claustrophobic tunnel, she doubted that her tall, broad-chested older brother could fare any better.

Her fears were instantly assuaged, however, when she turned the last corner and was confronted by the sight of figure with flaming red hair slumped against the craggy stone wall, his legs pulled up into his chest, his arms resting on his knees and his face buried in his arms. Sensing that the strong urge she felt to speak to or scold him for making their mother worry would only make matters worse, Ginny instead walked George's side and taking his cold, callused hand in her small, warm one, she wordlessly pulled him to his feet and, coaxing him back through the tunnel, guided him back to the Gryffindor Common Room where their family stood waiting.

The evening the Weasleys had Apparated back to the Burrow (which, under the orders of Acting Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, had been searched down to the very last cabinet to ensure no rogue Death Eaters were lurking on the premises with the intent to harm the Weasley family, or Harry Potter, who would be staying with them) Ginny, who had not strayed far from George's side since she had brought him back to the Common Room, realized quite quickly that spending time around his visibly grieving family would do him more harm than good.

As soon as they had they had arrived, the Weasleys, along with Harry, Fleur and Hermione, had filed into the kitchen and taken a seat around the scrubbed wooden table, avoiding one another's eyes as they studied the grain of the tabletop. Despite Harry's attempts to take the seat beside her, Ginny had wound up sandwiched in between her mother, who took every available to fuss over her last born as though she were still a toddler, and George, who clung to her hand as though she were the only thing that kept him anchored to earth, all the while staring unseeingly at the wall opposite to him. With every passing minute, he grew ever more despondent until, unable to stand it any longer, Ginny shoved back her chair and rose to her feet.

"I think I'm going to go lie down for a bit," she told those assembled, gently tugging on her brother's arm to bring him to his feet as well. "Walk me up the stairs, George?"

She led him wordlessly from the kitchen and up the many flights of until they reached the bedroom the twins had once shared. Ignoring the many 'WARNING' and 'DO NOT ENTER' signs that were plastered to the door, she pushed it open and walked inside, George following closely in her wake. She watched silently as he collapsed in a heap into the armchair near the smudged window and was about to leave him to himself and head to her own room when George reached out grabbed her by the hand.

"Don't leave me," he croaked his voice heartbreakingly child-like.

"I won't," she whispered back, curling up on one of the empty beds. "I promise."

Ginny had taken to spending long periods of time in the twins' old bedroom with George ever since. He refused adamantly to set outside the security of those for word and he very rarely spoke but never once did she push him, however much she would have liked to. She somehow knew that any attempt she made to force him to talk would only make him withdraw more deeply into himself than he already had.

And so she sat and waited, her mind wandering from one topic to the next, from the funerals she was aiding Andromeda in preparing to when Hermione would return from Australia with her parents to the next time she would be able so speak with Harry, who had been obligated, after two days of undisturbed rest, to go to Ministry Headquarters to give sworn statements on the death of Lord Voldemort and give testimony against several of his Death Eaters. It was not terribly long before George cracked.

"Aren't you going to tell me you know how I feel?" George demanded of her savagely, speaking for the first time in days. "That Fred wouldn't want me to shut myself away from the world? That he died fighting for what he believed in? That everything is going to be all right?"

"No," she said quietly, not allowing her surprise at his sudden change in demeanor show on the surface.

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Because I don't…know how you feel," she said her voice barely above a whisper as she struggled to keep her emotions in check. "Or what Fred would have wanted. His dying for what he believed in won't ease the pain, regardless of whether it is true or not. And everything is not all right. It probably won't be for a very long time."

George remained silent for several long moments as the meaning of the words she had spoken washed over him before he seemed to melt before her, collapsing into violent sobs that sent tremors through his entire body. When he reached for her she did not hold back, wrapping her arms around him, allowing him to cry on her shoulder as she wept into his hair until, between the two of them, there was no tear left unshed.

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Ginny," he said hoarsely into her shoulder when they had both finished crying. "I don't know how to live without him."

"You'll have to learn," she whispered back through the lump that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her throat.

"I don't know that I can."

"You can, and you will," Ginny said fiercely as she leant back to look at him, gripping his shoulders tightly with her hands. "I'll help you."

"I don't think Harry will appreciate having to share you with your exceedingly needy older brother," George commented as he rose from the bed and moved to sit on a threadbare armchair next to the window.

"Harry isn't the type of bloke to resent my spending time with my family; I wouldn't be with him if he were," said Ginny, regarding him levelly from beneath raised brows. "Besides, you're just making excuses. You can't give up on life, George. I won't let you."

"So it's true then," he said his expression turning thoughtful as he watched the droplets of rain drip down the clear pane of glass.

"What?" she asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

"You and Harry. Together."

"Oh," came her reply. In the insanity of the past several days she had completely forgotten about purposefully neglecting to fill her elder brothers in on the ins and outs of her love life. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"When?"

"Since the end of last school year."

"That long, huh?" he asked rhetorically, his gaze still fixed determinedly on the window. "You know, ever since the Christmas before last Fred knew something up between the two of you. Said if he caught Harry watching you when he thought no one else was looking one more time, he was going to wring his scrawny little neck. I thought he was off his rocker at the time. I mean it isn't exactly an older brother's dream to watch his kid brother's best mate moon over their baby sister, but…."

Ginny merely flushed in response to her brother's words, not quite knowing how she was supposed respond.

"He loves you?" George asked suddenly as he turned around to look at her, watching her face intently.

"That's what he says."

"And you love him?"

She nodded. "I do."

"All right then," George said, nodding his head decisively. "He's a good man, Harry is. I think he'll do right by you, but if he ever breaks your heart, just say the word and I'll hunt him down like mad hippogriff and make him rue the day he was born, all that 'Savoir of the Wizarding World' rubbish be damned."

Ginny laughed softly, forcing down the overwhelming urge to begin crying once more. For in that moment, she could see in him more of the George she knew and loved than had been present for days, and the sight warmed her heart. Perhaps this was a sign that maybe he would be all right after all. And rising from her seat on the bed, she perched herself on the arm of her brother's chair and, wrapping her arms around his neck, hugged him tighter than she could ever remember hugging anyone in her life.

"I love you, Georgie," she whispered, calling him by his rather unimaginative childhood nickname.

"I love you too, Ginger," he said, calling her by hers as he hugged her back.

Several minutes later found Ginny tripping down the Burrow's narrow wooden staircase on her way to the kitchen. After several days of grief stricken sleep deprivation, George's exhaustion had finally got the better of him and he had nodded off into a light sleep. She most likely would have followed in his lead and dosed off on Fred's old bed had not her stomach gurgled its protest, demanding she go and do the one thing that she had not much felt like doing these past few days: eat.

She had just hit the first floor landing and was about to scurry down the remaining steps to rummage through the waiting pantry for a piece of fruit when the sound of voices—her brothers' and Harry's—coming from the spare bedroom across the hall from her own caused her to stop and stand rooted to the spot, peering curiously at the shadowy figures just visible beyond the partially open door.

"I don't know what it is you want me to tell you," she heard Harry's voice saying, his tone belying the exasperation he was trying so valiantly to contain.

"The truth," Charlie returned without missing a beat.

"Ginny already told you all there is to know," Harry responded, his irritation growing with every word he spoke. "We took our godson up to the dormitories for a nap. We put him down on the middle of one of the beds and then lay down on either side of him so he wouldn't roll off the edge. We talked for awhile about how we could best help Andromeda with Teddy and then we fell asleep. When we woke up the three of us came back downstairs to the Common Room were the rest of you were already gathered. That's it. Now if you don't mind, I would like to spend the few hours I've got left until I'm summoned back to the Ministry again with your sister, not you."

Angered flared in Ginny's belly at both herself and her brothers when she realized what it was they had cornered Harry to discuss—she should have known better than to foolishly assume they would take her word on the matter and drop it when she told them nothing had happened between herself and Harry in the dormitory the afternoon before they returned to the Burrow. In the overwhelming crush of exhaustion that had followed Voldemort's defeat, Ginny had been swept away in grieving for the loved ones they had lost and caring for George. She had expected her brothers would be busy doing the same, and so she hadn't spared a moment to consider they would be wasting their time on something so trivial that didn't even concern them. Apparently she should have done.

And drawing herself up to her full height, which was not particularly impressive, she had to admit, she burst into the room, shoving the door back with such ferocity that it slammed into the wall with a loud crash, immediately alerting the room's five occupants of her sudden appearance on the scene.

"What's going on?" she demanded, her eyes sweeping slowly over the faces of Harry, who had spun around on the spot to face her when she entered the room, and Bill, Charlie, Ron and Percy where they stood at the other end of the cramped room.

"We were just…talking to Harry," Bill said, holding his hands up with the palms facing towards her in what he mistakenly thought to be a calming gesture. "There's no need to get upset, Gin—"

"Don't feed me that rubbish; I'm not nearly so stupid as you thing me! Why can't you just leave Harry alone?" Ginny cried, pushing the boy in question behind her as she advanced on Bill. "I didn't chase Fleur down while the two of you were dating and demand to know what her 'intentions' were towards you, and don't you dare try to tell me it's different because you and I both know it's exactly the same!"

"And you!" she exclaimed, rounding on Ron. "Don't think that I'm unaware you've been acting as their informant, telling them all you know about my relationship with Harry! Did you ever stop to think that if I wanted them to know, I would have told them, on my own time and in my own way?"

"Well why haven't you then?" Charlie demanded his arms crossed over his chest, the only one of her brothers who appeared unimpressed by both her sudden appearance and her impassioned words.

"Gee, I don't know, Charlie," Ginny snapped sarcastically. "Maybe it was to avoid the very situation we're in right now, with the lot of you terrorizing Harry like a bunch of Neanderthals in some misguided attempt to protect me and my innocence when you should be helping Mum prepare…prepare for Fred's funeral."

Clueless though the Weasley men could often be, they would have had to be both deaf and blind not to hear the hitch in Ginny's voice when she said Fred's name or see her blinking rapidly increase in an effort to keep her tears unshed. Properly ashamed of themselves, they all stared sullenly at the scuffed toes of their trainers or at the peeling paint on the walls—anything to avoid having to watch the struggle of emotions that was playing out across their little sister's face.

Bill made the first move, approaching her with arms outstretched in an attempt to wrap her in his strong embrace like he had so many times before, when he was younger and she was small, and had taken a tumble off of her toy broomstick. But they were no longer little. Things were not as simple as they had been back then, and in that moment Ginny came to the painful realization that they never would be again. Fred was dead, Bill was married, and in a few short weeks was her seventeenth birthday, her coming of age, and already she was being called upon to fulfill her duties as godmother to her dead friend's son. The childhood the seven of them had passed together—talking, playing, laughing, fighting—was over, shattered into thousands of tiny, indistinguishable pieces, and meaningless words soothingly spoken couldn't change that no matter how many times over they were repeated.

"Please don't," she whispered as she began to cry, cry for what it was they had lost, regardless of whether they knew it or not. Harry and her brothers' could only look on, helpless, as the tears wound wet tracks down her freckled face before sliding from her face and onto her t-shirt, the clingy fabric darkening the spots on which the droplets landed.

"Would the four of you please do me a favor and grow up?" she asked sadly before she slipped quietly from the room, her request lacking the venom that usually went along with it. "I have, and it would be nice if you would do the same, for yourselves just as much as the rest of us."

Sparing her brothers an angry glare that said all the things he wouldn't, Harry ran out onto the landing with every intention of following her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Okay. I know I said that this story would be a one-shot, but I got such a positive response here, on Live Journal and over at Sink Into Your Eyes, a site devoted to quality it Harry/Ginny fanfiction, that I decided to extend the story and allow the ideas that had been bouncing around my head for possible future chapters see the light of day. I know that there will be at least be one more chapter as I already have part if it scribbled down a few pieces of paper somewhere, though it may be another few weeks before I get around to finishing it up and posting it. That said, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and comments and reviews mean the world to me!

Edited To Add: I would have added this on to the already existing story file, but FF is having some...problems, and I am having difficulties viewing not only by Stats, but any of my already posted stories. My apologies to any and all this has inconvenienced.

Edited to Add (Again): FF has deigned to be cooperative once more so I decided to delete the separate file and add the second part to the original. My apologies again!