A/N: Ah, I had been doing so well with updating regularly, and so I apologize that this chapter took a little bit longer! I don't have any excuse. I was just kind of lazy. Anyways! This story is actually turning out longer than I originally expected. I remember thinking that it would be somewhere around five chapters long, but here we are at chapter seven and I think that there's still another four or five left? We shall see!

As always, I have been loving and greatly appreciating the feedback I've been receiving! Thank you!

"Here," Hermione muttered, slipping a small bottle into Ginny's hand.

"What would I do without you?" Ginny asked, dropping the bottle into the pocket of her robes.

"It should last you a while."

"Thank you."

It had been two days. Ginny was still waiting for the initial shock to wear off, but it hadn't yet. It all felt like a very strange dream. Hermione hadn't put any pressure on her at all to make any decisions yet. Instead, she had become Ginny's main source of comfort and support. And as the potion to relieve morning sickness bounced in her pocket as they walked to the Great Hall for breakfast, Ginny was incredibly grateful that she had Hermione.

Ginny had borrowed A Witch's Guide to Her Self from Hermione, and had read and re-read the pages on ending a pregnancy so many times that she already had it practically memorized.

The potion in the book would only end a pregnancy up to twelve weeks along. After twelve weeks, the potion would do nothing. To end a pregnancy later than twelve weeks, she would have to go to a Healer. She wasn't entirely positive how far along she was, but she and Hermione had worked out an estimate of no more than two months. It gave her a month to figure out what it was that she wanted to do.

It would be easy to end it. She just had to take the potion. The book told her that within an hour of taking it, she would menstruate, and that would be it. Her cramps would be worse than usual and her flow would be heavier than normal, but that would be it, and she wouldn't be pregnant anymore.

It would be easy. And yet, she hesitated.

She wanted to talk to Harry. He was, after all, a part of this. But it wasn't something that she could write to him about and she didn't know when their next Hogsmeade weekend would be. And so, she made no decisions. But she had time.

She felt strange, writing letters to Harry, like she had been doing since returning to Hogwarts, and not mentioning anything about the pregnancy when it seemed to be the only thing on her mind. She knew that she couldn't tell him through a letter, and yet she felt like she was almost lying by keeping it from him.

"What if I just casually threw it in at the end?" Ginny asked Hermione as they sat at a table in the common room, working on homework and writing letters to their boyfriends. "You know, just a 'P.S. There's a fetus in me and it's yours'?"

"Very to-the-point," Hermione nodded.

"Or how about: By the way, Harry, I certainly hope that you've enjoyed these past few months of not having responsibilities thrust upon you that are far more burdensome than anyone your age should ever have to deal with, because, guess what? Now there's a baby in your girlfriend's uterus!"

"Hm. Wordy. Kind of confusing."

"You're right. The simpler, the better. The thing is inside me and I still haven't fully comprehended it yet," she sighed, and then groaned, dropping her head into her hands. "I hate how overdramatic I'm being about this."

"Are you being overdramatic?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows.

"It feels like it," Ginny said, looking up at her. "I mean, when I put it into perspective… we all nearly died barely a few months ago, and now I'm acting like it's the end of the world because I'm pregnant. It seems rather ridiculous, doesn't it?"

"You do that a lot, don't you?"

"Do what?"

"You minimize your own feelings because you attempt to compare it to other things, and then decide that what you are feeling is somehow not as important as whatever else," Hermione said, and then shrugged. "True, we went through a war, a lot of people died or nearly died, and that was awful. But that has no connection to what you are dealing with now, so you shouldn't compare the two. You should allow yourself to feel whatever is that you are feeling. Your feelings are valid, Ginny. Don't minimize them."

"I don't… I'm not…," she attempted to argue, but she gave up. "You sound like Simone."

"I've learned a lot from her," Hermione admitted. "Speaking of… are you going to talk to her about this?"

"No," Ginny shook her head immediately. "Nobody can know but you. And Harry, eventually. But that's it."

"Okay," she agreed.

"I mean, unless I decide to…. But I don't know what I'm doing. Until I know what I'm doing, nobody else can know."

"Okay," Hermione said again.

But once Ginny was in Simone's office for her first counseling sessions since knowing that she was pregnant, she realized how difficult it would be to not talk about it. It was quite literally one of the only things that she had been thinking about. But she couldn't talk about it. Nobody else could know. So she didn't say much of anything at all. She talked about school and quidditch. She was sure that it was obvious that she was avoiding talking about anything serious. It was like she'd had her big breakthrough in counseling and then was reverting back to how she was when she first started. But this was something that she just couldn't talk about. She couldn't.

…

It had been two weeks. Ginny still hadn't made a decision. She knew that she was halfway through her month before absolutely having to decide. Every day that passed, she became more and more anxious. Every time she thought about it - which was nearly all the time - she felt a tightening sensation in her throat, pressure in her stomach, and a heavy thumping from her heart.

Hermione had a habit of glancing at her with an expression of concern and questioning, and Ginny knew what it meant. She never asked her directly if she had decided yet. She didn't have to. Ginny would just shake her head and Hermione would let it go.

The first Quidditch game of the season was approaching. It was Gryffindor versus Slytherin, and Ginny was training her team nonstop. Being on the Quidditch pitch seemed to be the only time that she was free from the worry and anxiety that she felt every other time. As she flew, focusing on the game and on her team, she could almost forget for a moment that she had to make a potentially life-changing choice very soon.

"Are you sure you should be flying, though?" Hermione whispered her concerns to Ginny one evening in the common room after Ginny had returned from an exceptionally grueling practice.

"It's fine," Ginny assured her, as she climbed the stairs to the girls' dormitories, but Hermione looked unconvinced as she followed her. "Look, under normal circumstances, you're right, I probably shouldn't be flying. But I don't even know if I'm having this baby. I can't just stop doing what I need to do."

"Okay," Hermione said, but she was frowning, and Ginny could tell that there was something that she wanted to say, but wasn't saying it. She felt a twinge of annoyance. The dorm was empty and Ginny began to change out of her Quidditch practice clothes and into her pajamas.

"What?" she asked her, and the annoyance that she felt was evident in her voice.

"Well, nothing," Hermione said. "I'm just… I'm concerned, is all."

"Concerned about what?"

"I'm concerned that you're two weeks into making a really important decision and you haven't given me any indication of where you stand, and I'm concerned that your lack of response thus far means that maybe you shouldn't be doing something as potentially dangerous as playing Quidditch," she admitted rather quickly, standing beside Ginny between both of their beds, not looking directly at her.

Ginny stared at her. There was a part of her that understood that Hermione meant well, and that she was trying to help her, but there was a larger and more forceful part of her that had been having a hard time controlling its emotions lately. Her eyes narrowed, and the twinge of annoyance that she felt earlier was now emitting sparks of anger throughout her body.

"Maybe you should mind your own damn business," she growled at her. Hermione hardly reacted. She met Ginny's eyes, still frowning.

"I don't think you mean that," Hermione replied calmly. She was right, and Ginny knew it, but her calmness irritated her.

"Look, it's not like I'm…. I'm not… I mean…," she paused, trying to figure out what it was that she was even trying to say. She fell down onto her bed to sit, folding her legs underneath her. "I haven't made a decision yet because it's a really hard decision to make, okay?"

"You haven't really talked about it very much. If it's because you don't want to, because you want to figure it out on your own, then that's fine. But… you know I'm here if you need to talk through it, right?"she asked, and in an instant, the negative feelings that Ginny had towards Hermione melted away.

"I just don't want to be annoying," she admitted.

"Ginny, you're not annoying," Hermione assured her, sitting down on her own bed across from Ginny, looking at her.

"As soon as I think that I've made a decision, I start second-guessing it, and think about the other option. Both options have good things and both options have bad things. And… I'm scared."

"Scared of making the wrong choice?" Hermione asked, and Ginny nodded.

"Because what if I end it and I don't end up with the career that I want or the life that I want? You know, what if in five or ten years, nothing is how I want it to be, and all I will be thinking about is how maybe I would be happy if I'd had a baby. But what if I do have it and then I won't be able to pursue the career that I want at all, and what if I end up resenting my own child for that? But then, if I don't have it, I could go on to be wildly successful and happy… But if I do have it, I could go on to feel completely fulfilled and happy…. I just wish I could know now what will happen either way. Also, Harry! I don't want to leave him out of this. If I decide to have it, it will completely change his life, too. And I would also feel badly about ending it without him even knowing about it."

"I keep holding out hope for a Hogsmeade weekend soon…."

"Me too," Ginny nodded. "I don't think I can tell him if it's not in person."

"What if there is no chance to see him in person, though? What then?"

"I don't know," she said with a frown, and then sighed. "On the upside, though, have you seen my boobs lately?"

"You know, I didn't want to say anything and make it weird, but yes. I did notice that they look-"

"Incredible, right?" Ginny said, looking down at her own chest. "I mean, they hurt all the time but my goodness, I've been waiting for tits like these since I started getting tits!"

Hermione laughed, and Ginny did too. Finding the silver lining in a situation had always made her feel better. It wasn't any different now.

"I'm sorry that I was short with you," Ginny mumbled an apology. Hermione simply shrugged.

"I mostly just assumed that it was a mood swing. I didn't take it personally," she said.

"It's kind of exhausting going from being perfectly content to a raging psychopath in a split second," she sighed. "And the crying? I cry a lot now. Yesterday I saw a first-year girl trip and fall in the corridor, and then a first-year boy stopped and helped her up, and I started crying over it. An actual tear fell out of my eye!"

"Just one tear?"

"Yeah, I mean, it really wasn't worth more than that. But still!"

Hermione laughed again. Ginny couldn't blame her. Ginny let out a sigh and repositioned herself so that she was lying down on her bed, looking up at the ceiling.

"Tell me again that everything is going to be okay?" she asked Hermione.

"Everything is going to be okay," she assured her, and she sounded sincere. "No matter what, everything is going to be fine."

"Promise?"

"I wouldn't lie to you."

"Okay. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

…

Ginny sat in the locker room. She was alone. She was early. She had skipped breakfast to come down before the rest of the team. Any minute now, they would all come in, excited and ready for their first match. She knew that they were ready. She knew that they knew that they were ready.

She listened to the silence. She found it to be incredibly calming.

There had been no Quidditch the previous school year. The last Quidditch game she had played at school had been in her fifth year. Gryffindor had won and then Harry had kissed her.

She smiled.

Her teammates slowly began to make their way into the locker room, a few at a time, until they were all there. They talked to each other as they changed into the Quidditch robes and as the noise from outside grew louder as the stadium began to fill with students and professors.

"Okay!" Ginny called to her team, and in an instant they were quiet and looking at her. "I don't have much to say. We've trained hard and we're ready. Play your best, and we're going to do just fine. Now, let's go destroy these Slytherins!"

The group cheered, high-fiving each other, patting each other on the backs, and shouting out words of encouragement.

They were ready.

Ginny shook the hand of the Slytherin team captain. Madam Hooch blew her whistle. And they were off.

It was pure freedom. Her mind was cleared of everything except for the game. In less than five minutes, Gryffindor had already scored twice against Slytherin, Ginny scoring once, and another chaser - a fourth year girl named Grace - making the other score. They were off to a good start.

The Slytherin chasers were pretty good, but Sebastian, the Gryffindor keeper, was better. Ginny shot him a thumbs-up as he successfully blocked Slytherin from scoring. He grinned back at her. A bludger flew towards her, and she dived out of the way, narrowly avoiding it as it whizzed past her.

Maybe if I get hit by a bludger, I'll fall of my broom and I won't have to make a decision anymore… she thought to herself, and was immediately repulsed by her own brain. She didn't want to be thinking about this. This was supposed to be her free space. And she didn't want to get distracted.

But it was already too late. Grace was attempting to pass the quaffle to her, but she wasn't paying attention, and then it was somehow in the hands of a Slytherin chaser. Her moment of distraction seemed to distract others on her team, because Sebastian failed to block the goal posts, and a roar erupted from the Slytherin stands.

"Dammit," Ginny cursed out loud, but Gryffindor was still ahead by thirty points.

She glanced around, looking for her team's seeker. She spotted her, above the rest of them, circling the field. She was a small fifth-year girl named Phillipa with dark hair and a round face. Her tiny size seemed to make her incredibly fast, and she had been doing very well in practices, but Ginny worried about her. She was sure it was because she was completely biased and didn't think that anybody could really take Harry's place as Gryffindor's seeker, but she would never admit that out loud. She hoped that Phillipa would catch the snitch early on and end the game sooner rather than later. She was hopeful that her team's moment of weakness due to her own distraction was just a one-time flaw, but she worried that it was the beginning of a downwards turn.

Slytherin scored again. Gryffindor scored twice more.

Ginny flew towards the Slytherin goal posts, quaffle clutched tightly, aiming, throwing, and it was blocked. The Slytherins cheered. Ginny scowled, but out of the corner of her eye, a red and gold blur flew past her, and she turned to see Phillipa headed in a direction with determination. And then she saw the golden glint of the snitch hovering towards the ground a fair distance away. The Slytherin seeker had seen it too, and he followed the small girl, but he was no match for her. She had swooped down and then back up again, holding the snitch in her hand, and the crowd erupted, and Ginny grinned, flying towards the ground and crowding Phillipa with the rest of the team.

"Brilliant, Phillipa, brilliant!" Ginny cried, and the girl beamed, allowing herself to be swallowed up by the team.

Ginny was happy. She was ecstatic. There were few things that gave her the same amount of satisfaction as winning a Quidditch match did. Ever since the first match she had ever won, she had known that this was what she wanted to do for as long as she possibly could.

"Party in the common room!" somebody yelled out. Ginny grinned, patting her team's seeker on the back once more, and then heading towards the locker rooms to change.

…

"It was a very good game yesterday."

"Thanks, Luna," Ginny sighed. "But now I'm even more behind on homework than I was before."

"The way people are acting, you'd think we'd won the Quidditch cup," Hermione rolled her eyes. "Some of them are still going at it. Getting anything done in the common room was next to impossible."

"I think it's nice," Luna said. "So many of us missed having Quidditch last year. I can't blame them for being so excited."

"It is nice. But I didn't expect the celebrations to last for so long. I had planned on doing work last night, but then I was just too tired," Ginny explained with a frown.

"Oh, are you tired because of the pregnancy?" Luna asked casually. "I've heard that happens."

For a split second, Ginny thought nothing of it, but then she realized what Luna had just said. She immediately looked at Hermione, ready to accuse her of spilling her secret, but she could tell by her shocked expression that she hadn't told her.

"Wh- How- What?!" Ginny sputtered out. "How do you know?!"

"Oh, am I not supposed to?" she asked, looking up at Ginny with her round, innocent eyes. "I'm sorry. I thought it was obvious."

Ginny wanted to ask her how it was obvious, but she reconsidered it. After all, Luna was extremely observant, and perhaps it was obvious that she was pregnant.

"You won't tell anyone, will you?"

"Oh, no, of course not. It's not mine to tell! Does Harry know yet?"

Ginny shook her head. "Nobody knows but you and Hermione."

"I'm sure Harry will be very happy. He seems to be quite taken with his godson."

"Yeah, I…," Ginny frowned. "I don't know if I'm going to have it or not."

"Oh," Luna said, looking contemplative. "You didn't become pregnant on purpose then?"

"No! Why would I do that?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "People become pregnant on purpose all the time."

"Not when they're seventeen," Ginny said.

"I suppose that's true."

"Hogwarts has a rubbish policy on sexual education," Hermione commented with a scowl towards the walls of the library, as if it was its fault that the school's sexual education was bad.

"That is also true," Luna nodded in agreement. "I suppose they might think that it would be uncomfortable for student to learn about sex from a teacher, but I think that it's more uncomfortable to talk about sex with parents. Maybe if my mum was still alive, it wouldn't have been terrible. But my dad didn't talk about it with me. I don't think it was until he noticed that I was spending time with a boy that he even thought much about it. And then he left a book in my bedroom. It was very informative."

Ginny glanced quickly at Hermione, who met her eyes with her own quizzical glance. Ginny shrugged, answering Hermione's unasked question, and then they both turned back to Luna.

"What boy were you spending time with, Luna?" Ginny asked, a smile playing at her lips.

"I do worry that it might make things slightly uncomfortable," Luna began without hesitation. "But I think that as you are pregnant by Harry, you won't really be bothered."

"What?" Ginny asked, not really following along.

"I don't actually know if you would be bothered by it at all. You don't seem like the type. But I've always heard other girls saying that friends' ex-boyfriends were off-limits. And I would never want to do anything to upset a friend."

"Wait…," Ginny mumbled, and she and Hermione looked quickly at each other again, and then back to Luna, who seemed to be trapped in her own thought process.

"Luna, who is it?!" Hermione asked, snapping Luna out of it.

"Dean Thomas," she said.

"Luna!" Hermione grinned. "You're going out with Dean Thomas?!"

Luna simply smiled, gazing serenely at the two girls.

"It is quite unexpected isn't it?" she noted, then looked at Ginny. "You're not upset?"

"No! Luna, of course not. Dean and I went out ages ago," she assured her.

"That's a relief. I was quite worried."

"Wait, how did this happen? I want to know everything!" Hermione pressed.

"Well, as you know, after we escaped from Malfoy Manor and went to Shell Cottage, Dean and I spent time together," she explained, and both Hermione and Ginny nodded. Ginny had only heard about this, but Hermione had been there. "He was very kind to me. We didn't know each other well, but it was nice to be around each other. He was very comforting. After the war ended, he wrote me, and we spent more time together. He admitted to thinking that I was odd at first, but during our time at Shell Cottage, he had begun to find it endearing. I thought that was nice. It was all very strange. I've never really had any particular interest in dating anybody, but I have found that it is rather nice. I think Daddy likes him a lot, too. He helped us both a lot this summer. It was very kind of him."

Ginny couldn't help but grin. She remembered how exciting the early stages of dating were, and she was happy for her friend. As unlikely a pairing as she found it to be, it somehow made sense.

"Luna, that's wonderful," she told her.

"Oh, I am glad that you are not upset. I worried about it a lot."

"Well, like you said, I am pregnant by Harry. I'm not bothered. Dean's a good bloke, he just wasn't right for me. But I'm glad he found you."

"I think that if you and Harry did have a baby, you would both be lovely parents," Luna said. Ginny smiled.

"Thanks, Luna."

…

It was windy. Windy and cold. Ginny watched as her Quidditch team left the pitch, marching back to the castle. Practice had run later than usual, and the days were getting shorter, and it was already dark. Ginny held back, not walking with the rest of her team. The wind whipped at her face, and even though her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, strands of it flew into her eyes. She welcomed the cold and the wind and the way it felt against her skin.

Practice had gone well. The team was still in extremely high spirits from their win against Slytherin, and it seemed to make their performances even better. She was proud of her team. She remembered how worried she had been when choosing her new members, but she was proud of them.

She pushed hair from her face, although it was useless, as the wind blew it right back. Her hand gravitated down to her stomach. It had become almost an instinct at this point. When she was alone, when she was lying in bed, whenever she could, she placed a hand over her belly.

She thought that maybe she was imagining it, but it had started to feel different. Like there was just the tiniest, slightest bulge there. Her skin felt tighter. She didn't think that it would be noticeable to anybody else, but it was her body, and she was sure that it had begun to change.

Goosebumps had erupted over her exposed flesh. She thought of the common room and the fire that would surely be burning inside, and it was appealing. And yet, being alone outside in the cold, dark, windy night was also appealing. She found it peaceful. Everything made a little bit more sense when she was alone like this.

She knew what she wanted to do.

It wasn't going to be easy. Although, none of the options were particularly easy.

But standing there, alone, wind-blown, and cold, looking up at the night sky with the Hogwarts castle illuminated in front of her, it was all clear. She didn't know how or why it was suddenly so clear to her, but she didn't feel like questioning it. It was the first time she had been certain about anything in a long time.

She finally began to make her way towards the castle. When she entered, the sudden rush of warmth over her cold skin caused her to let out a soft sigh of satisfaction. She hadn't realized just how cold she has been. Her fingers were numb, and the tips of her ears began to burn as they regained feeling.

She climbed through the portrait hole into the common room. It was fairly crowded, especially around the fireplace. Ginny glanced around, spotting Hermione at a small table in the corner. She was immersed in a book while a pair of knitting needles worked on something beside her.

"I thought you were going to try a new approach with house elf liberation?" Ginny questioned as she slid into the chair opposite Hermione.

"Hm?" Hermione mumbled, glancing up from her book at Ginny. Ginny nodded her head towards the knitting needles.

"Making hats for house elves again?"

"Wha- Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, seemingly having forgotten about her knitting, looking at it, and then grabbing it. "You weren't - I mean. I…."

Ginny furrowed her eyebrows, tilting her head at her friend. There was something that she wasn't telling her.

"You weren't supposed to see that," Hermione finally said.

"What do you mean? Why not?"

"I…," she trailed off, and then glanced around the crowded room. She picked up her wand. "Muffliato."

"What's going on?"

"I was making it for you," she admitted, holding out her work, and Ginny noticed that the hat, made of a dark green yarn, was significantly smaller than the ones that Hermione used to make for the elves. "Well, I mean… for the baby."

"You were?" Ginny asked, and she nodded.

"I wanted it to be a surprise. I was going to give it to you when- I mean, if - you decided that you were going to have it. I wanted it to be my way of showing that I support your decision," she explained, and she sounded unsure and shy.

"When I decided that I was going to have it?" Ginny repeated, ignoring Hermione's mid-sentence correction.

"I know how presumptuous that sounds, I do. It's just that...I thought that maybe since it's been taking you so long decide, that meant that you were… probably… maybe… going to have it."

She looked nervous, as if Ginny may explode at any second. She couldn't blame her. Her mood swings did make her rather unpredictable, and Hermione had gotten quite a bit of it. But Ginny wasn't angry. She wasn't angry at all.

"I am," is what she said.

"You are?" Hermione asked, barely concealing her surprise. Ginny nodded slowly, and a small smile spread across her lips.

"I am," she repeated. "I'm completely mental, aren't I?"

"No!" she shook her head. "Admittedly, it's not going to be easy, but you'll have help and it will be fine. And your baby is going to be so loved and so happy, and, oh gosh, I feel like I should hug you, but I don't want to draw unwanted attention over here!"

"Oh, fuck it, get over here and hug me, Granger!" Ginny demanded, and the two girls dissolved into giggles as Hermione scurried from her chair over to Ginny, swooping down and pulling her into a tight embrace. Ginny closed her eyes, holding onto her friend. She felt a lightness spread over her. The anxiety that had been pressing down on her for nearly four weeks had been lifted. She knew that it wouldn't last. It would be replaced with a new type of anxiety any second, but for now, she allowed herself to feel free for a moment.

When Hermione finished hugging her, she sat back down across from her. They both glanced at the common room and noticed a few curious eyes in their direction, but it didn't really matter.

"What am I going to do about school?" Ginny asked.

"We'll figure it out," Hermione assured her. "I have an idea, but we'll have to talk to Luna."

"Okay," Ginny nodded. And then they both fell silent. They both knew what the other was thinking about, and it was Hermione who broke the silence.

"You have to tell him," she said.

"I know," she agreed. "Next Hogsmeade weekend. It's bound to be any day now."

"Okay," Hermione said. "It'll be fine, you know. He'll probably be surprised at first. Get really quiet. Probably blame himself and apologize for whatever-"

"Hermione," Ginny smiled, cutting her off. "I know. That's exactly what I expect from him as well."

"Right. I guess you know him about as well as I do now, don't you?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe in some ways, but not in others."

Hermione smiled at her, and she couldn't help but smile back.

"You're having a baby!" Hermione said in complete awe. Ginny simply nodded.

"I'm having a baby," she said, and then she laughed. She couldn't quite believe it. It was real and she had decided and she was certain that she was making the right choice.

"I'm having a baby."