Hi everyone here is the FINAL CHAPTER of this story!

This story was a labour of love and would not have been completed without each and everyone of you who have read and reviewed, favourited and followed this story. You all made it a joy to write and update this story and i want to thank all of you.

For those interested after a short break planning this next story for this fandom i will be back. The fanfic is probably going to be a Bill/Fleur fanfic and will also involved a Weasley being born a bit earlier than cannon. If you are interested stay tuned as i intend to have the first chapter of this story up...you guessed it...sooner rather than later.

Disclaimer-Nothing in this chapter or indeed this story is mine with the exception of the little first year ducklings whose story i may come back to one day.

Everything in this chapter is AU based on the details fed by the nineteen years later epilogue. Some of the details are my own headcannons. The timing is off but I hope you like it either way.

Please let me know what you think.

Beat Your Heart Out

Chapter 27-James

The Final Chapter of this story!-As time moves on and September 1st moves closer, Harry and Ginny put the past behind them and move towards a peace filled future surrounded by family and friends.

The first few months—actually looking back if she was being totally and completely honest with herself it was the first few years—were a total blur. There had been the slow process of not only rebuilding their lives but rebuilding the world.

That first month, Ginny, Harry and James had lived between the Burrow and Hogwarts. The house was too crowded and the school the same and yet they had nowhere else to go. Harry refused to live at Number 12 claiming that event though Sirius had moved on beyond the veil if he got wind that Harry was planning to live his life in the house that had been nothing but darkness for him, he'd find a way to come back and haunt the shit out of him. Ginny had laughed and laughed until her sides ached revelling in the fact that she could do that now.

The fact that Ginny Weasley had been pregnant with Harry Potter's baby and nobody had known about it had spread through the school like wildfire. It was both comforting and annoying, comforting because it was clear that despite the hole in the wall, the turrets falling down and the stench of burnt wood, the students of Hogwarts still gossiped with the all the finesse of a finely tuned high school. Annoying because she was once again the subject of attention and when she was staying at Hogwarts (a move she suspected because her mother did not want to see Fred's bedroom yet and George could not go home to the flat over the shop) with the baby James was the centre of attention too.

Some of it was good. Grace who was back for two weeks to get her stuff and too help clean the castle (McGonagall's punishment for any underage student who stayed behind accompanied alongside half an hour with the first years where Ginny imagined she gave them such a blasting that when they all came back to the Common Room ashen faced they were unable to speak for an hour) cooed over the baby like was her own and could easily relieve Ginny for two hours of precious sleep by entertaining James who it seemed did not discriminate when it came to hair colour and loved tugging on the blonde locks as well as the red ones of his mother. Parvati was delighted, Lavender still in the hospital wing recovering was thrilled for Ginny too and Parvati had took James to see Lavender with Ginny's approval and told Ginny afterwards Lavender had smiled for the first time since she had seen herself in the mirror.

Dean and Seamus were thrilled too. Seamus upon hearing the story had leapt onto the table shouting "I bloody knew it!". Dean, the unpleasantness of the last summer gone had hugged her and then Harry. McGonagall had told her that what she had done was incredibly reckless and that her office had always been open if Ginny had needed it and then had got a look in her eye when Ginny had said the baby was called James Sirius that made Ginny think she was battling tears.

But McGonagall was McGonagall and before Ginny could ask she had returned to her normal self and offered her a biscuit which Ginny had taken feeling rather stunned as she had always assumed that, that particular rumour had been myth.

Ron, Percy and Hermione had all been thrilled. Whenever James wasn't being passed around the woman of Hogwarts (apparently her son had a thing for charming all the girls Hufflepuffs, Gryffindor's and Ravenclaws alike) he was too be found on Hermione's lap who had (much to Ron's alarm, Harry's exasperation and Seamus, Dean and Neville's amusement) taken out her old battered copy of Hogwarts A History one night and had taken to reading it to James to get him to sleep. Ginny thought it hilarious that Hogwarts A History got her son to sleep within seconds and Harry said it was predication of the future which had set them all giggling. Ron had held James at a rather fussy moment had promptly shoved him back to Harry with an alarmed expression and had then muttered about best friends and sisters and betrayal for ten minutes until Hermione had kicked him. Percy who had gone back to work to rebuild a shattered government had told Ginny that James was a lovely baby and when Ginny had offered Percy a cuddle he had gone rather shy and had held James with the look of a man who had no idea what he was doing.

Astoria Greengrass had too taken a different approach to the news of Ginny's motherhood and her own impending one should they have lost the war. Harry had taken James to see Hagrid who had returned and delighted in the return of his favourite pupil and Ginny had gone to find Greengrass who lying on the grass staring upwards at the clear blue sky with a bottle of fire whisky next to her.

"It's not that I don't appreciate the thought Ginny" she said after she had inhaled half the booze and then laughed for ten minutes. "But I didn't exactly endear myself to the Death Eaters, plus it would have been a dead give away that the baby wasn't mine. Besides, I wouldn't have the first clue what to do with it"

"He"

"Yeah that…" she waved a hand. "It was nice of you to think of me thought" she said finally. "It's…well…I suppose that this makes us friends in a way doesn't it?"

"I suppose so"

Astoria smiled. "That's nice" she said finally.

They stayed sitting on the grass watching the wind blow ripples into the lake until Harry came to join them. He nodded at Astoria who smiled waved one ringed hand at James who became immediately fixated by her pearl ring and tried to touch it.

Time moved on however as it always did, it was not easy. They did go back to the Burrow eventually and it was not easy. There were tears from her mother, days where she couldn't get out of bed and a particularly nasty row where she had accused Fleur of taking Fred's place within the family, screamed at James calling him and his arrival into the world several harsh terms which seemed out of character for the doting grandmother she was. Harry had taken James and Teddy to the local muggle shop for some ice cream (being one he had fed them off spoons and got much appreciation from the boys and many coos from the girl behind the counter) while Bill had stormed from the house and Ginny had followed too angry to speak and too angry to forgive despite Harry pointing out that it was grief talking and that even the idea of losing James was so terrible it made his stomach cramp—never mind actually living it day by day.

Their father had coped with a strength that she would have never have thought possible. Throughout her childhood it had always been her mother who had been the one that seemed to pull together and get them through the dark days as a family. Now the roles seemed reversed and it was their father who had gotten their mother of the floor that day she had hit rock bottom. Whatever conversation had passed between the two of them Ginny didn't know about and it had taken a month on her part before she had been ready to accept her mother's heartfelt apology, cry with her and leave her in a much better form so she and Harry could finally get around to house hunting though that turned into a date in a pup and several kisses. Ginny had never been to a muggle pub before and had taken great delight in watching Harry use a muggle debit card which her father had gone into (much amusing and touching) transport of delight about when he had seen it go into the ATM machine and then back out again.

Bill on the other hand had taken longer to get his head around everything and it had only been with Fleur's insistence not to mention the arrival of Victoire Isabelle Weasley that had things had begun to mend. James only close to a year old had not responded well to Grandma's now divided attention though Teddy even at his young age had a nice way of turning his hair a light blue ('a compromise' Harry said grinning between his own favourite shade of turquoise and Victoire's own tuff of silvery blonde) and didn't seem to mind this new addition nor the addition another year later of Molly Lydia Weasley who had been born to Percy and a healer he had been seeing called Audrey who Ginny liked. She had long dark hair and skin the colour of coffee and was not afraid to speak her mind something that was invaluable at the Weasley dinner table. What had shocked them all was Percy's complete change of heart which was getting back to work only to get to be Kingsley's personal assistant with plans to pass the Wizarding Law Bar. Though her mother had grumbled about "three grandchildren and only one wedding" she was coming back into her own and she got her wish eventually when as James turned two Ron finally got down on one knee and asked Hermione to make him an honest man.

They had found an flat eventually too. Harry had talked constantly since he had been fourteen about being an Auror and he went when he was nineteen with Ron. He graduated with flying colours (who would turn him down after all) and then he went into a desk job while Ginny finished her education and then went into journalism. She had been recruited for several teams but somehow she didn't want to do that anymore.

She knew why, that baby she couldn't stand to be away from for even a year never mind more than that on the professional circuit. Her baby, baby James.

They had found a small flat the three of them in London. Harry made it no secret that he wanted a house but he didn't know where. He was loath to go back to Godric's Hollow and he didn't want to go to Number 12.

"What about a magical village only?" Ginny had said one night when they had been in bed together. They hadn't been physical until a year after James had been born and Ginny had been strangely shy. It was one thing for Harry to see her in an old jumper and tell her he didn't mind the stretch marks, the fact that she had gone up a two bra sizes a size in the jeans and two sizes top wise. But seeing it in the flesh so to speak was another thing.

But Harry had been gentle and loving and brilliant about it in every way. He had been gentle and he had been passionate and they had time to do things they had never thought they would get the chance to do in that little bedroom overlooking the Burrow's back garden. It had been perfect. Even the little things like James screaming the flat down and dinner being burnt and Harry introducing her to the muggle take out service where James would play with the Chinese boxes and Ginny would use a fork because she couldn't use chopsticks to save her life.

"No" Harry said finally. "I don't want that. A mixture perhaps but…everyone knows who were are in that world, at work, when James goes to school. Everyone. In the muggle world we are just two young people with a baby."

Ginny sighed, the world that Harry described was not one she was familiar with and she couldn't deny that she wanted a connection to the world that she had grown up in where neighbours took communal portkeys and the newspaper was delivered by owl and it was not uncommon to see spells flying out of windows when someone was having a row.

"What about somewhere were there's both?"

"You got a place?"

And that was how they ended up in a small corner of the Lakes where there was a community of wizards in the next town, muggles in another and Harry could take James out into the fields in a little raincoat and wellies and Ginny could watch as her son splashed about in the puddles, got covered in mud and lived a life full of peace.

She thought it perhaps a loving and long lasting tribute to Remus that they rented Number 12 to a werewolf pack at a knockdown price who had no issue telling Waldulfa Black to shut her face.

Actually as she told Harry the night he had given a man by the moniker Colt Rawlings the keys—she thought it was nothing short of pure genius.

When James was five they celebrated Christmas together and it was then after putting a rather hyper five year old to bed that Ginny opened her present from Harry on Christmas Eve and saw the ring in the little box. It was a gold band with a diamond the size of a square and two smaller diamonds on each side. Next to them were two smaller rubies next to them.

"I'd get on one knee" Harry said from where he was sat in front of the Christmas Tree next to her glass of fire whiskey in hand. "But I know you and I know that you'd probably hate it so I figured I'd ask right here, right now…Ginny, will you marry me?"

Ginny's response had been rather…enthusiastic.

Her mother had been thrilled.

They got married on a clear December day when the snow had only just begun to stick to the ground. Ginny had work a dress of white with a boat neck collar and long sleeves that had flared into lace. Harry had worn dress robes of dark blue. Her father had walked her down the isle and before she had gone he had turned to her and said "I am proud" which was all Ginny needed to hear. She had seen Ron and Hermione married, George (off the booze, sober and with smiling again in a way she had never really believed that she would see again) his arm around Angelina and her hand resting on her stomach that Ginny knew from experience was carrying a baby three or four months old. Bill with Fleur her belly big again, Percy with Audrey, Andromeda chatting with Kingsley as Teddy and James, Victoire and Molly chased their way around the tent laughing madly. Hagrid sobbing into his hands, McGonagall her eyes rather wet, Charlie beaming with some man standing next to him, Luna embracing the idea of being an Aunt with a tall boy next to her with wide eyes and a gnome in his back pocket, Muriel snapping at everyone but winking at her when Ginny caught her eye. Dean and Seamus holding hands rings on their own fingers, Oliver and Katie, Lee and Alicia, Astoria Greengrass her own engagement ring winking on her finger looking resplendent in a green dress that made several people look sideways at her. Lavender her face scarred but still standing chatting with Terry Boot, Parvati chatting with Tommy's Dad who seemed to be blushing under the lights. Neville and Hannah holding hands under Augusta's watchful gaze, Susan her belly round with Ernie's child, Cho Chang and a man with her who looked somewhat amazed at what he was seeing, Slughorn with his flask, Flitwick and Sprout in the corner gossiping, even Trelawney…Ginny's first years, first years no longer but children turned to fifteen. Grace on Tommy's arm her blonde hair in a knot on her head and her pink dress shimmering, Alfie, John, the former with a girl that Ginny was introduced to as Sabrina Bryant a fourth year Slytherin and the later with a boy who was introduced as Justin Finch-Fletchly's younger brother Carter who he was holding hands with. Ginny hugged them all, smiled all day and thought only once of the dead who had given their lives both in the first war and in the second so that she could have this perfect day. Fred, Remus, Tonks, Mad-Eye, Colin, Emma, Sirius, Cedric, Lily, James…all of those men and woman who had given their lives so that a generation could live free.

And then at the back of the crowd a woman in a pink salmon dress who looked as if she did not know what she was doing here, her hair brown and mousy. Harry said something to her and then beckoned Ginny over. Ginny wrapped a hand around his waist and it was then that she was finally introduced to Petunia Dursley, Harry's Aunt, Lily's sister and a woman that looked both alone and deeply uncomfortable. There were several things that Ginny could have said to this woman but she was suddenly aware that she didn't want to. Petunia might have been a bitch, and a terrible Aunt but she had made the effort.

"Hello Mrs Dursley" she said in an effort to be polite. "My name is Ginny We—Potter" Harry beamed at her and Petunia Dursley watching her nephew seemed to flick her lips upwards in what could have been a smile though it was gone before Ginny had investigated it properly. There was a thud to her left and she knew who it was. She picked up James and hooked him onto her hip. They had dressed him in a pair of black pants and a white shirt though if he got to the chocolate cake (and Ginny liked to think of Teddy enough to know that boy had gotten his hands on the chocolate cupcakes with the dark chocolate frosting) it wouldn't stay white for long. James was a big boy now, a steady flesh and blood five year old something other than the baby that she had cooed over and gone to hell and back to keep safe.

"This is James" she said quietly. "Our son"

Petunia Dursley's eyes widened a fraction as she took in the resemblance between Harry and James and for a second Ginny thought she saw something in her eyes that could have been amusement but then the look was gone and she was fastening the clasp on her handbag and muttering about going. Harry offered to have someone take her home but the woman insisted she had taken the train and would carry on in similar fashion.

"I don't know why I invited her" Harry said finally watching her go. "I just…well…she is my mother's sister even if they couldn't stand each other at the end. And…and I think deep down she got what Voldemort was and what he was doing."

"It was nice" Ginny said finally. "And we can start the rest of our lives clean and clear now. No more grudges"

Harry nodded but his eyes stayed on the little gate Petunia Dursley had walked out of for a little while afterwards.

Eighteen months later Albus Severus was born. Ginny had no issue with Albus but the birth had been longer and more difficult than James and she was convinced she had agreed to her son's middle name only under the influence of heavy drugs.

Harry just grinned whenever she said that.

When Albus was two a third (and Ginny told Harry very sternly there would not be a forth) baby joined their midst. She was a little girl. While James and Albus had inherited their father's looks with Albus having Lily Potter's eyes this little girl was the carbon copy of Ginny.

"Lily" she said knowing that while Harry would not ask it was what he wanted and besides, throughout her whole pregnancy with James, Lily Potter had been the one woman she had wanted to speak too, she had found during those months that she understood the woman who had become a footnote in Wizarding history in a way that she would never have thought to had she not been pregnant.

"And for a middle name?" Harry asked as Lily's brown eyes flickered shut as if she was tired already. Ginny shrugged. In truth it was hard to tell at this point. Ginny had been the first girl in her family for generations and yet here the Weasley's were with more girls than they knew what to do with. After Victoire, Bill and Fleur had, had another girl by the name of Dominique Gabrielle and after Molly, Percy had had another girl by the name of Lucy Eleanor, George had a son and a baby girl by the name of Roxanne Amelia and even Ron and Hermione had Rose Elizabeth and another boy named Hugo named after Hermione's favourite author (Ron had nearly kneeled over she had said that his first name was Victor). As far as names were going a lot of the ones Ginny might have considered had been taken.

And then Harry spoke.

"Luna"

"Luna?"

"Yeah, she's your friend, besides she's loyal. She has a way of growing on you as well. Plus I know you want her to visit more often, and this might be the way to do it" He winked at her over Lily Luna's head and Ginny smiled. Luna had gone off exploring and met the grandson of Newt Scamander, Rolf, they had had a whirlwind romance and then she had gotten pregnant last year with twin boys Lorcan and Lysander that Ginny had yet to meet. Considering that this Luna, Ginny wondered weather or not her friend would ever settle down but Ginny wanted to see her again. Besides Harry was right, Luna deserved recognition by them for a long dedicated battle of service to Harry, to Dumbledore and to the cause that had took so much from her.

And that was how they got to here.

As September the 1st neared Ginny who had been working on her article over the latest World Cup news (apparently there had been rumours that France had bribed their way into holding the World Cup next year with a combination of torture, blackmail and threatening to curse people into hedgehogs). Personally a week of soaking up the sun in France would do Harry and her a world of good and besides how many sources could you trust really?

"Ginny…you told me to remind you that you had to leave at four for James and Teddy's leaving dinner and your mother has already flooed me three times today to tell me to remind you and also she is changing the menu to beef ribs rather than beef cheeks as she thinks her red wine jus is too rich for the kids"

Ginny looked up and grinned.

"Cheers Grace"

Grace Brady grinned back. Nearly eleven years on and Grace still had her blonde hair now down to her shoulders and she still had that look on her face that had taken her into battle against men and women three times her size never mind her magical ability. She had graduated from Hogwarts and had come to work for Ginny. The girl was a good writer and more to the point fluent in languages as well due to her father's job in the Department of Magical Co-Operation. She also had a wonderful sense of knowing when a source was talking complete and utter bullshit as well something she said came from living with four men. While she and Tommy were together, they had moved into a house in Manchester with Carter and John who were now engaged and Alfie who had a son with Sabrina the girl Ginny had known called Isaac. Unfortunately Sabrina had died of after a diagnosis of cancer when Isaac had been six months old. Despite the Wizarding World's advancement's the reality was in terms of cancer they were still side by side with the Muggle world and Ginny who had never stopped keeping in touch with her first year ducklings as they had called themselves had spent days with Alfie ensuring that he was taking care of himself and the baby who was adorable with a tuft of blonde hair and big blue eyes. She had felt a sense of trust when he had given his son to her so he could sleep. These kids had been her babies in a way as well. Because she had trained them and taught them and loved them and protected them. And Harry bless him understood that. Even if he was a little amused when the first time Tommy and he had met, Tommy had sunk into a half bow.

"How's Tommy?" Ginny asked pulling herself out of memory lane. Grace rolled her eyes.

"Moaning about the auror courses your husband has him on and yet loving every second of it."

Ginny laughed. Grace took in the look on her face and did not let her down with the information she so desperately wanted.

"Alfie's ok too, Isaac started wizarding nursey last week so of course he's a nervous wreak and John and Carter are still happy. Your friend Hannah got Alfie a job at the Leaky last month so he's happy and John's working at Gringotts though how he has the brain to do all those numbers I don't know. Either way, were good. Were happy. Were alive."

There was a pause as Ginny took that in and she grinned. Grace grinned back and then she was out of work and back to her mother's house where her husband and her children and leaving the other children she had trained and raised and loved to their own lives that they got to live free of fear.

Her mother was in fine form. Teddy and James more so. Harry grinning as he helped himself to Treacle Tart. And Ginny…Ginny just sat back and enjoyed the peace. It was a thing she had come to enjoy and yet never depend upon.

Merlin she hoped that would change.

Some day. One day. Any day.

September 1st dawned bright and early. James was up by five. Harry speaking from their house in the Lake District told him sternly to go back to bed at least until eight. Ginny sleepily cuddling close to him grinned and privately agreed.

At eight fifteen the Potters were ready, by ten they had met Teddy beaming his hair a pinkish colour with scars down his cheek. Andromeda clutching her handbag and a handkerchief in one hand. Ginny made a mental note to ask her to dinner as soon as she could. And together they went through the barrier of Platform 9 and ¾ to where the scarlet train awaited.

James dithered somewhat. Lily still young enough to be on her Dad's hip was watching with wide eyes. Albus clutching Ginny's hand was also watching, this vibrant world that was their world was still unknown to their children, Harry and Ginny having chosen privacy when it came to their children and their upbringing. James pushed his trolly with his trunk the brown owl that he had been given by them last night named Nero and Ginny suspected the Marauders Map somewhere in his back pocket. Harry needed the cloak for work but Ginny suspected that the map had been passed on to another generation who would use to it to cause headaches amongst the staff.

Teddy was already waiting for them his hair now scarlet to match the engine. Ginny suspected it would change colour many more times before the night was out before sticking to his usual bright turquoise. Ginny watched as Harry put the two trunks onto the train and then it was a last round of hugs and then Ginny's little boy was onto the train and the train was speeding away from them and her boy was gone off to school and the adventure that was awaiting him called life.

Harry's hand slid around her back pulling her close. Albus had apparently gotten board of seeing the train that had taken his brother away from him and now wanted ice cream. Soon enough Lily wanted it too. Harry asked Andromeda if she wanted to join them but the other woman fussed with the clasp of her handbag and muttered something about Kingsley coming to dinner that night and then disappeared before Ginny could so much as raise her eyebrows or tell Andromeda good for her. Instead she stared down the tracks at the train that had taken her son away from her towards the life she had wanted for him desperately.

So much had been given for this small moment, Fred, Lupin, Tonks, Colin, Mad-Eye, Sirius, James and Lily, Neville's mum and dad, her uncles, Cedric Diggory, members of the Order from both wars. All the pain and the loss. Ginny remembered when she had been pregnant and she had stared out the window at the grounds and wondered weather or not she could do this, have Harry's baby, have a baby during the war and raise it. Give it this.

She had never thought that it would come and now it had and she had done the one thing she had promised her baby when he had still been flat in her belly that night in Hogwarts. She had given him a future free of Voldemort.

Harry perhaps seemed to understand what she was thinking or perhaps he was thinking the same thing because his gaze when it flickered upon her was very warm and his eyes were very bright. Ginny smiled back and felt that same tell tale patter of desire she had felt since she was sixteen, perhaps even younger than that when all she had wanted was the green eyed boy to notice her.

Well…she had gotten that and more some.

She hugged Albus closer to her as Harry swung Lily onto his hip with wild theatrics that had her giggling.

"Come on" he said grinning at her. "Let's go and grab some ice cream before we head home"

Ginny nodding grinning as her two youngest children cheered.

Harry took her hand and she linked their fingers together as they walked back through the platform, away from her son off to enjoy his life free of fear and loss, towards the muggle world, their own house, and towards peace.

And there you are. Let me know what you think please. I wish you all the health and happiness in the world and i hope to see you soon with one of the many stories i have planned for this incredible, precious fandom that has meant so much to me.

And again a massive thank you to all of you. To each and everyone of you who have helped me complete this story. I hope you enjoy this final chapter and i hope to see you soon x.