Was this what people meant when they uttered the phrase about seeing their lives flashing before their eyes? When they said it, were they referring to the life that they had already lived? Their past, the important moments that brought them to that spot at that time? Or did they mean that they were witnessing the life that they hadn't yet seen - and likely never would?

Ginny saw it all. The moments that led her there, and the moments that had been yet to come.

"He's perfect," Harry was saying as he held the newborn baby in his arms.

And then Ginny was watching her mother, grinning as she held the baby, bouncing him and causing him to let out shrieks of laughter. It was the happiest she had seen her mother in ages.

The baby was learning to walk. Harry's arms were outstretched as the child cautiously took a few wobbly steps towards him. They were all smiling.

Two boys zoomed around the kitchen, chasing each other and laughing and shouting while Ginny struggled with one of her mother's easiest recipes. She was still a dreadful cook. Harry stepped through the door, and both boys halted, one of them shouting "Dad!", the other yelling out "Harry!" Harry laughed as his son and godson ran towards him. He managed to drop a kiss on Ginny's cheek and say a quick hello before the two boys dragged him away from her. She couldn't help but smile.

They were all so clear, they felt like memories, but they had never happened. And they never would. Each image that had been so fully formed and clear began to crack and break and crumble away.

It was over. They were gone. It was all over.

"I'm not sure what protocol is here."

"The girl is of age. We don't need to contact her parents. Just treat her as you would…."

"Minerva."

"Yes, Poppy?"

"This shouldn't be happening. How many times does something like this have to happen before enough is enough?"

"Poppy."

"A seventeen year old girl is lying in my hospital wing suffering from a miscarriage. A seventeen year old girl, Minerva."

"I know," Professor Mcgonagall replied, sounding tired.

"I've been saying it for years. Decades, even!" Madam Pomfrey continued. "But I suppose it's easy to ignore when you're not the one that has to see the seventeen year old girl suffering a miscarriage! And do you remember what happened with the Davidson girl, what was it, seven or eight years ago now? Took a bad batch of termination potion and had nearly bled dry before she even came to me! And let's not forget the Hufflepuff gonorrhea outbreak of 'ninety-five! And those are only the extreme cases, Minerva."

"I know."

"These children don't know how to protect themselves! And if they aren't learning it here and if they aren't going to learn from the parents, where are they going to learn? I used to say it to Albus all the time, just because he wasn't sleeping with anyone-"

"Poppy!"

"-doesn't mean that these kids aren't going to. They have fire in their loins, Minerva! They need to know how to protect themselves from actually feeling like their loins are on fire, though."

"I understand."

Ginny stared up at the dark ceiling from her bed in the hospital wing. The curtains were drawn around her, blocking Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall from view, but she could still hear their hushed conversation. She had been there for a few hours now. Hermione had fallen asleep in the chair beside her, after refusing to leave Ginny's side.

Ginny couldn't fall asleep, though. She felt numb. Her pain had stopped, thanks to a potion that Madam Pomfrey had given her. She didn't feel any pain at all. She didn't feel anything.

"This shouldn't be happening," Madam Pomfrey said. "Things like this can be avoided."

They continued to talk, but Ginny tuned it out.

The trip from her bed to the hospital wing didn't feel real. It felt like a distant memory, a dream, a feeling of detachment coming over her, as if she was watching it happen to somebody else. She didn't want to go, but Hermione insisted. Madam Pomfrey had asked her questions - how far along she had been, things like that, but she couldn't think, couldn't answer, and Hermione took over, knowing everything enough to tell Madam Pomfrey what she needed to know.

"You'll stay here the rest of the night," Madam Pomfrey had told her.

"Why did it happen?" Ginny asked, desperate to know. Madam Pomfrey looked at her, and she could see the pity in her eyes, and in her small, sad smile.

"Sometimes these things just happen. There isn't always a reason."

"Did I do something wrong? Was it my fault?"

"Oh, dear, no. It just… sometimes things just go wrong. It happens sometimes and we don't know why."

She felt betrayed by her own body. Again. It was the second time her body had betrayed her. The first time, she had been eleven years old and her own body had been out of her control. And now, it had been out of her control again, and it betrayed her again.

She felt nothing. Numb. Empty.

Her body, which had so recently held another life, was empty. Her body had betrayed her and she was empty.

She fell asleep. It was the only thing left for her to do. She couldn't think, she couldn't feel, so she fell asleep. She didn't dream. She didn't wake up once. And when she did, there was a split second before she remembered where she was and why she was there. And for a split second, everything was okay. But then the split second passed, and it all came back to here. And it was bright, the sun of late morning streaming through the windows. She wanted to go back to sleep. But she had woken up for a reason. Another split second went by, and she knew why she was awake.

"Hermione, what is going on?!"

"I asked you to stop!"

"Why are you not telling us anything?!"

"Because I can't! I told you that! I told you that I can't! You weren't supposed to come here!"

"Hermione."

It was Harry's voice.

Hogsmeade. They were meant to meet in Hogsmeade. She had completely forgotten.

Ginny hadn't opened her eyes. She continued to feign sleep.

"Please tell us what's happening. You show up without her, refuse to tell us anything, finally tell us that she's in the hospital wing, but you won't tell us why…. Hermione, what's happened? Why is she here? What's wrong?"

"I can't."

Ginny could tell that Hermione was near tears, or was perhaps already crying. Ginny opened her eyes, looking towards them. Hermione, Ron, and Harry stood nearby, but they didn't notice yet that she was awake. She wanted Madam Pomfrey to shoo them away, but they spoke quietly, she likely didn't even know that they were there.

Hermione had tears streaking down her cheeks, leaving two shiny trails along her dark skin. She looked at Ginny, immediately meeting her eyes, and in a single glance, Ginny could see that Hermione was helpless. It only took a moment before Harry and Ron followed Hermione's eyes, and then they were all looking at Ginny. She scanned their faces quickly. They were confused. Worried. Hermione hadn't told them anything.

"I'm so sorry," Hermione whispered to her. "It was too late to tell them not to come. I had to meet them. I didn't know what to say. They came here… I tried to stop them. I'm so sorry."

"Ginny."

She couldn't look at him. Harry was looking at her, his utterance of her name full of unasked questions, but she couldn't look at him.

"Tell them," she said, her own voice, raspy and tired, sounding foreign to her ears.

"What?"

"Tell them," she repeated, looking straight at Hermione, and she watched as her wide eyes filled with fresh tears and she shook her head, bringing her hands to her mouth.

"I can't," she muttered. "Not the both of them. Not at the same time."

"What? Tell us what?!" Ron demanded.

Hermione's eyes were pleading with her, but Ginny remained expressionless, resigned to the fact that now that Ron and Harry were there, they had to know. They would both know, and what was the use of drawing it out any longer? She almost wished that she was feeling the same fear that Hermione was feeling. But she still felt nothing at all. She looked away, staring up at the ceiling.

"Ron, you mustn't get angry," Hermione began weakly.

"Why would I get angry? What the hell is going on?"

"Please, Ron."

"Hermione, just tell us," Harry said, his voice calm, but Ginny could hear the tiniest hint of fear.

"Ginny's had a miscarriage."

The air seemed to disappear from the room completely. It was so silent that the ringing in Ginny's ears was deafening. She longed to look at them, to look at Harry, to see his face, to try to know what he was feeling, but she couldn't. She squeezed her eyes closed. It all felt like a terrible dream and she would wake up any second now, and maybe she would still be pregnant, or maybe she would be back at The Burrow and she wouldn't have ever been pregnant at all, and none of this would have ever happened.

But when she opened her eyes, she was still in the hospital wing, and everything was real.

"I… Sorry, I'm…," Ron stammered, finally breaking the long, deafening silence. "I'm confused. I don't think I quite understand."

"Yes, you do," Ginny said, voice dull and flat, still not looking at any of them. "I've had a miscarriage. I was pregnant. And now I'm not."

There was another near-silence, the only noise being the sound of Hermione sniffling, and then, the squeak of a shoe and several footsteps, and finally, Ginny turned to look at them again. Only, Ron was missing. Hermione was looking towards the door, and Harry's face was blank, rooted to one spot, staring at the floor.

Ginny turned away once more.

"Harry," Hermione whispered. But only silence followed.

"Why, Mister Potter. Just when I think I've seen the last of you in my hospital wing, you're back. Although, for once, you don't seem to be sporting any new injuries, so I suppose that's an improvement."

"Madam Pomfrey," Harry replied, his voice sounding strained and odd. "I was just…."

He trailed off. But Madam Pomfrey barely seemed to notice as she turned her attention to Ginny.

"If you two don't mind, I'd like to check on my patient," she said, but nobody moved or made any sort of indication that they had even heard her at all. Ginny watched as Madam Pomfrey looked at the two visitors, and she was sure that she was connecting the dots, figuring out why Harry was there and how he was involved. A moment passed. Silence. Nobody moved. Finally, Madam Pomfrey spoke again.

"Miss Granger? Perhaps you could bring Miss Weasley some fresh robes so she doesn't have to go about in her pajamas. I expect she'll be free to go shortly."

Surely, there was an easier way for Ginny to have clothes other than her pajamas that didn't involve Hermione going all the way to the dormitories and back, but Ginny understood it as Madam Pomfrey simply giving Hermione something to do, her look of helplessness still etched across her face.

"Okay," Hermione answered.

Madam Pomfrey drew the curtains around her bed. Ginny sat up, going through the motions of whatever Madam Pomfrey told her to do. She examined her midsection with her wand, nodding to herself and then telling Ginny, "Everything is looking okay."

Ginny wasn't sure what that meant in the circumstances of a miscarriage, but she nodded anyways.

"You're alright to leave," she said. "It seems that you body is taking care of everything on its own… You might continue to have a bit of discomfort… but everything is fine."

"Okay," Ginny said softly.

"I understand that this is probably a difficult time-"

"It's fine," Ginny interrupted her, not wanting to hear about the 'difficult time' that she was going through. "I'm fine."

"Okay," Madam Pomfrey nodded. "You're free to go when you are ready."

"Thank you," Ginny told her. And then Madam Pomfrey left, reopening the curtains around her bed, and then Ginny sat alone in the hospital wing. She was still in her pajamas from the night before, although the blood from her pants had been magically cleaned away. Even though the blood was gone with no trace that it had ever been there, she was convinced that she could still see it. She wanted nothing more than to throw those particular pajama pants away forever. She sat, waiting for Hermione to bring her fresh clothing to change into.

"Ron."

It was faint, but she heard the voice clearly, just outside of the hospital wing, unmistakably Harry's.

"Don't," Ron replied. "Don't even try to talk to me right now."

"Okay," Harry said, followed by several seconds of silence, until

"How could you?" Ron asked.

"What?"

"You got my sister pregnant. How could you?!"

"I didn't know."

"I don't care that you didn't know. You… you…. You did this to her!"

"Yes, I did, but I didn't do it on purpose! You can't be angry at me!"

"Oh, I can't? Bloody hell, Harry, you're shagging my sister and I can't be angry at you?!"

"Is that the reason why? She's my girlfriend! You know that! It's not like I've hid that from you."

"I don't care! It doesn't matter!" Ron argued. "You can't- that's not-"

"You're being ridiculous, Ron."

"No, I'm not. You have no business doing that with my sister."

"Again, she's my girlfriend. Like you're not sleeping with Hermione."

"That's different."

"How? How is that different?!"

"It… it just is! For one thing, she's… she's…," Ron stammered, clearly struggling.

"She's nobody's sister?" Harry suggested.

"She would never let something like this happen," he said. "You got her pregnant! You're lucky this happened-"

"Lucky?" Harry repeated incredulously. Their voices had grown steadily louder, and Ginny didn't even have to try to hear them anymore. She heard every word clearly. "You call this lucky? Did you even see her in there? That's lucky to you?"

"You know what I mean."

"No, actually, I don't know what you mean."

"What would you have done?! If she hadn't… if she'd… if she had a baby?"

"What do you think I would have done, Ron?"

"Would you have married her?"

"Yes," Harry answered without hesitation. "But I didn't even know! Not until now."

"It doesn't matter that you didn't know. It still happened. You still let it happen."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"There's nothing you can say. The damage is done, isn't it?"

"What's going on?" Hermione's voice suddenly asked, and Ginny was sure that regardless of how much of their conversation she had heard, Hermione had learned over the years to detect tension between Ron and Harry.

"Nothing," Ron and Harry said in unison, but the way they both said it, it clearly wasn't 'nothing'.

"You two are not fighting right now, are you?" Hermione asked, softly so that Ginny had to strain to hear her.

"He's being-"

"Oh, I'm being-"

"-ridiculous-"

"-fucking arse-"

"-saying that-"

"-but I'm not-"

"-when she's-"

They kept talking over each other, Ginny only able to pick up a few words at a time, growing louder and louder with each passing second.

"Stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it! Both of you! What in the hell is wrong with you?!" Hermione shouted at them.

"He knocked up my sister!" Ron exclaimed.

"Ron, please! It wasn't done on purpose, and either way-"

"You're on his side?"

"Side?" Hermione said. "Side? Ron, I'm on nobody's side. If anything, I'm on Ginny's side!"

"Wait," Ron said suddenly, and was silent for a moment. "You knew."

The words were laced with vicious accusation, and a long silence followed.

"You knew, didn't you?"

"Ron."

"You knew. You knew and you didn't tell me."

"It was never mine to tell!"

"I'm your boyfriend, aren't I?"

"That doesn't mean that I'm supposed to tell you your sister's secrets! She's my friend and I would not betray her just because-"

"Well, you've betrayed me!"

"Oh, please, no I have not, you are being fucking absurd, Ronald!"

"I don't keep things from you!"

"You are being so childish right now. This isn't about you, Ron. Your sister lost her baby and your big concern is what? That she had sex? Because she is an adult, she can do that. Or what it because it was with your friend? Or that I knew and didn't tell you? Because none of those things matter. None of it fucking matters, Ron. You're making this about yourself. It's not about you."

"Yeah. You're right. None of this fucking matters."

"Ron!"

Ginny listened as the heavy footsteps thudded further away.

"Yeah, okay!" Hermione yelled out, her voice shrill. "Just walk away. Because that's what you do, isn't it?! That's what you do!"

"Hermione."

"Dammit!" she cried.

"I'll take this," Harry said quietly. "Go."

"Harry."

"Go."

More footsteps, quicker, Hermione chasing after Ron. And then silence. And then Harry.

She met his eyes the minute he stepped into the room. He stood there, staring back at her, and there were so many things that she wanted to say, and yet she couldn't think of a single word.

"Did you hear…?"

"Everything," she nodded. "Do you think they'll be okay?"

"Ron and Hermione?" he asked, and she nodded. "Yeah. They'll be fine. They've gotten through worse."

"And you and Ron?"

"Oh...I dunno," he shrugged. "I think these are for you."

He stepped near to her, holding out a pile of neatly-folding clothes that Hermione must have given to him before running after Ron. Ginny reached out, taking it from him.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"For not telling you. I should have told you. I was going to. Today, actually. I'm sorry that this was how you had to find out."

"Don't apologize for that," he said. "I… I don't even know how hard this must have been for you… everything… I'm sorry, Ginny. I… I'm sorry."

"Harry."

"This is my fault."

"No it isn't," she told him. "Harry, everything we did was completely consensual. It's no more your fault than it is mine."

"But…," Harry began, but Ginny simply shook her head and he trailed off. She longed to touch him, for him to hold her, to be wrapped in his arms, to be close to him. But they were quite a distance apart and it all felt too delicate yet. She knew that touching him would break something within her. She wasn't ready to break.

She changed her clothes. They left the hospital wing together.

"Walk?" Harry suggested, and Ginny nodded. They walked outside, the December wind cold against Ginny's skin, but she didn't mind. They didn't say much. They didn't need to. Walking along the Hogwarts grounds with Harry reminded Ginny of the spring that they were together, before everything had changed forever. She wondered if Harry was thinking the same thing.

Once they both noticed the trickle of students returning from Hogsmeade grow more and more steady, he turned to her.

"I should probably go."

"Okay," she said with a nod.

"I'm…. Are…. I mean….," he struggled with his words, and then he paused, swallowing hard. "I'll see you soon."

"Yeah," she nodded again.

"Okay," he said. "Bye."

"Bye," she replied.

They didn't touch. They looked at each other, the weight of everything left unsaid heavy on both of them, but they said nothing more. They looked away and that was it.

She turned back to the castle. She felt a dull aching inside of her, throughout her entire body from her limbs to her chest to her head. It was all she felt. It wasn't enough, but at the same time, it was far too much.

She found Hermione in the girls' dorms. She sat on the edge of her bed, curled over, hugging her knees and softly crying. Ginny sat beside her, wordlessly easing one of Hermione's hands towards her, grasping onto it. Hermione uncurled, revealing puffy, bloodshot eyes and a tear-streaked face. Ginny held her hand, leaning into her, resting her head on her shoulder.

"You wanna talk about it?" she asked her in a whisper. Hermione shook her head.

"No. Do you?"

Ginny shook her head as well. Hermione let out a soft sigh, tilting her head to rest atop Ginny's. Ginny wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, but the words were stuck in her throat, unable to come out. So instead of saying anything, she held her hand a little bit tighter.

…

It was strange, the way everything kept on moving after something terrible had happened. It had happened after the war, after the final battle. But it was different. The war had happened to everybody, and when it was over, the shock and grief had made a home in them all. Everything kept moving when it was over, but there was a sense of community, and with it came time. Time to process, time to understand before having to pick up and keep moving. There was understanding and support coming from every angle, every single step of the way.

But this was nothing like that. Everything continued to move and everybody continued to move with it. As Ginny walked through the corridors, heading to class, everybody else was exactly the same as they were just a few days ago. Nothing had changed.

She was alone in this. Something had happened to her and she wanted everything to stop until she was ready to keep moving, but it couldn't. The rest of the world was oblivious to her and it all kept going. It all kept moving and she had to move with it. She had to, or she would drown.

She took a breath and she kept moving.

…

Ginny sat down in the chair across from Simone, dropping her bag on the floor and looking at the wall behind Simone rather than straight at her.

"I guess I should tell you that I had a miscarriage," Ginny spit out before she was able to stop herself. She was going to have to tell her eventually. She needed to do it quickly. She hadn't spoken about it since it had happened. Hermione had respected her obvious wish to not talk about it, so they didn't discuss it. Ginny had asked Hermione to tell Luna, so she did. Simone was the only other person that knew that the baby had ever even existed in the first place. Ginny knew that she had to tell her. So, she did before she could convince herself not to.

"Ginny-"

"But I don't want to talk about it," she added hastily, and then continued before Simone could speak. "I know what I'm doing. I understand it now. I'm pushing my feelings away. I'm avoiding them because I'm scared of how badly it's going to hurt. And I know that the longer I wait to feel them, the more they're going to hurt when I finally do. But it's only been a few days, and I'm just… not ready. Not yet. Okay?"

"Okay," Simone agreed. "You don't have to talk about it today. We can get there when you're ready. I really am very sorry that you have to go through this, Ginny."

"I'm fine," Ginny mumbled, a reflex, a lie.

"You're not," Simone said, seeing right through her.

"I'm not."

"And that's okay."

Ginny let out a soft sigh, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, they immediately landed on the photograph atop Simone's desk, and she looked once again at Simone's family.

"Will you tell me more about your son?" she asked.

"My son?" Simone repeated, sounding unsure and confused.

Ginny nodded.

"Are you sure that's what you want?"

"Yes. I just… please?"

"I…. Okay," Simone said. "Well… he's four now. He loves Spider-Man, which is, uh, it's a muggle thing, he's a superhero, a character with powers, he can shoot webs and climb up walls like a spider, fights bad guys… his dad is also muggle-born, so there's a lot of muggle things… but he's really into Spider-Man right now. He has this Spider-Man toy that he won't go anywhere without… He's got an imagination, too..."

Ginny smiled, listening to Simone speak with such obvious love for her child. There was something else, deep within her, a part of her that ached, somewhere in the pit of her stomach. She felt it and she didn't ignore it or push it away. She felt it, and it was the first real thing that she had felt since it all happened. She felt it, and it hurt, and she was glad that it was there.

The room was full of reminders of what she had lost. Simone, the only person she had actually told about the pregnancy, proof that it had happened, that it was real. The poster on the wall with the black and white and red, the Macbeths and the child that they had lost. The photograph of Simone's son, with his cherubic, rosy cheeks and that blonde hair, so unlike the child that Ginny had pictured for herself, but still an image of everything that had been taken from her by the betrayal of her own body.

She ached. She ached, and she felt it, and it was the first real thing that she had felt since it all happened.

She felt it. And it hurt. And she was glad that it was there.

A/N: An author's note at the end of the chapter? I know, weird, right? I just kind of felt like the last chapter needed to flow right into this one, so... yeah. I wanted to get this up sooner, but, you know... life, and stuff. Apologies for the wait!

I really wanted to say, though, that there has been quite a few... mixed feelings about what has been happening in this story, and I totally get that. I understand it and expected it, and that's great! To make anyone have feelings at all (good or bad!) is great! But I wanted to say that from the very beginning of planning this story, this was always going to happen. This was never really a story about pregnancy. The miscarriage was always going to happen, but I needed the pregnancy to happen first because, well... yeah. I like to think of this as a story about how people deal with loss in different ways. Also, the topic of miscarriage is still kind of taboo, even though it happens to so many women, and the idea of losing an unplanned pregnancy was something that struck me as an especially emotionally difficult situation. I don't know if what I want to get across in the story is/will actually come across the way that I want it to, but hopefully you guys can sort of understand where I'm coming from.

Anyways, I know that I might lose readers, and I will be very sad to see them go, but if you hang in there with me, I will be so very grateful!

Hey, have I ever mentioned that in my brain, Simone is "played by" and also totally shaped after Marion Cotillard? Just a little fun fact for ya. There are tons of tiny references to Marion that just show how much of a creepy fangirl I am. I can't help it. She's my wife.

As always, feedback is so very appreciated!