A/N: I own nothing but the plot and make no profit. Thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, and subscribed. It's not wanting to let you down that is pushing me to finish this.

XXXXX

Later on Sunday evening, as Draco and Ginny were both reading in bed, he noticed that she was restless and unsettled. Putting down his book, he asked, "You've been quiet tonight. Is everything ok?" He moved closer as she put down her book as well and came to curl up against him, resting her head upon his chest.

She sighed deeply. "I don't know Draco, I just feel like all of my friends are moving on without me." Smoothing down her hair, he opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but she continued, preventing his words. "I have no right to be jealous of Luna, and everything she has. And I'm ashamed of myself that I am." She snuggled in closer to him, refusing to look up at him. .

"Why would you be jealous of Luna?" he asked, hoping that some levity would make her feel better. "I hope you don't mean Blaise. Trust me, Blaise is nothing to be jealous of. I've never met a creature with smellier feet, and he's horrible about leaving his socks all over the place. We used to threaten to send him down to the Hufflepuffs if he didn't pick up after himself. Trust me," he repeated, "you have nothing to be jealous of there."

Eventually she looked up to him, unshed tears making her eyes glisten. "Should Luna be jealous of me then? Because I have you instead?"

He grinned broadly, and puffed out his chest the best he could with her leaning against him. "Absolutely. She should be jealous. I'm awesome. I'm a Malfoy." He smiled into her hair as he leaned down and kissed her crown.

She chuckled at him, but grew grim again quickly. "You don't know what it's like Draco. Every witch hears from the time she's small how her life should be. There's a path we're supposed to follow, fighting in a war not withstanding. Meet a nice wizard at Hogwarts, get married, and create little witches and wizards. I can't do that. My nice wizard turned out to be a big lie. I'm the last of my friends without a public relationship, and the only sound of tiny feet I have in my future are Shadow and Dash."

"Don't forget Zippy and Zinnia," he tried again to tease her out of her sadness. "As a rule house elves are quiet, but they do have tiny feet." She buried her face deeper into the crook of his arm, so he tried another tact. "Ginevra, please look at me." He tugged at her until she was looking in his eyes, and then made a vow to her, "I swear to you that I don't want an heir. I might not be a nice wizard, but I've never cheated. Ask Pansy, she's my oldest female friend, and she'll vouch for me. And as for a public relationship, I'd have you living upstairs with me already if I didn't think it would freak you out to contemplate that step." He leaned down and kissed her quickly on the nose and continued, "I promise you, that I'm not going anywhere. You're stuck with me. I'm just lucky that you're just as awesome as I am," his eyes full of the smile that creased his face.

She finally smiled back at him, but he could still see the sadness that lurked behind her eyes. "I'm lucky to have you Draco. And I should apologize in advance. I'll try very hard to not be jealous of Luna's pregnancy, but I can't make any guarantees." She curled back into his arms, content that for one of first times, she'd had an honest conversation with a man that she loved.

Draco held her tightly. He meant what he had said; he hoped that she realized that he wanted her to move in as soon as possible. He frowned a bit knowing that she'd avoided further discussion on that topic, but frowned more when the words she'd uttered sunk in fully. "Wait, Luna's pregnant?"

XXXXX

Monday afternoon, Arthur left Kingsley's ministry office and leaned against the wall in the hallway. His meeting with the Minister of Magic had been enlightening, but there were things Arthur knew that he needed to do. Things he never thought he'd have to, things that years ago if you'd suggested them, he'd have thought you mad. He steeled himself, shook off a bit of trepidation, and went back to his own office. If anyone had overheard him muttering to himself, they'd never believe the words Arthur Weasley uttered. "Yes, I'll floo Draco. He'll know what to do. He'll help."

XXXXX

Tuesday evening after their yoga class, four witches poured through the door of the Leaky Cauldron, full of laughter. Heads turned, not just at the sound of the joy in their voices, but because it was such an oddly matched yet beautiful group of witches. As they approached one of the few empty tables left, towards the back of the pub, Hermione's voice rose above the others, assuring her new friend with a giggle, "I promise you Pansy, next week it will all be easier."

Plopping herself down into one of the chairs, Pansy chuckled back, "Merlin I hope so. Though, I suspect that Theo will be pleased with any flexibility I gain from this."

She winked at Luna, who blushed a bit before tilting her head in a concerned query, "Has Theo been talking to Blaise?"

All four of the women laughed again, leaning their heads in together to continue their whispers and giggles. Gradually, the rest of the pub's patrons came to ignore the table, save for one set of eyes, invisible to them, glaring at them from the corner of the bar.

After placing their orders, Ginny excused herself to go freshen up. The other three nodded as she rose from the table, but continued with their discussion, trading theories full of excitement and anticipation at the thought that a new magical school could open for their children in the near future. Of the remaining seated witches, Hermione was the most excited, of course, but she was also the first to notice that Ginny had been gone far too long.

In the meantime, the silent and invisible watcher had risen from the bar when Ginny broke off from the table and moved in the direction of the loos, down a poorly lit hallway. After Ginny had exited the Ladies' and started back into the main dining room, a hand captured her by the elbow and spun her back into the darkness. Ginny gasped and struggled as a voice growled into her ear, "So this is what it has come to, has it? You've sunk so low that you're spending time with that Slytherin slut in public? Has Malfoy turned you into just another one of his whores?"

Fighting against her unknown assailant, Ginny wrestled her arm free and in doing so, tugged off Harry's invisibility cloak. The strength she used to break free caused her to tumble to the floor in the pub, and her gasp of "Harry!" was loud enough for the eyes of every patron in the Cauldron to turn towards her for the second time that evening.

"How could you do this to me Ginny? How could you betray me, betray everything we stood together for, like this?" he snarled down at her, fury so great that he didn't notice the silence and stillness that had settled over the rest of the room.

Across the pub, Hermione rose to her feet, ready to draw her wand, just as she noticed four wizards enter the room, two from each entrance, matching duos of a redhead paired with a Slytherin. As her eyes met her husband's, George gestured for her to sit, that he and Blaise, as well as Draco and Arthur, had the situation under control. Not that Ginny needed their backup, but they were there just in case.

Ire rose in Ginny, so powerful and full of electricity that her hair started to raise from her shoulders and crackle around her. "Betray you? BETRAY YOU?" shouted as she climbed back to her feet, and at that moment every wizard in the room knew that they'd never cross the youngest Weasley. (While every witch leaned forward, hoping finally to learn the juiciest gossip in the wizarding world in decades.)

"Ginny, you can't do this to yourself. You're in denial. Even after all this time, I'll take you back. I saw that trash in the paper about you, that horrible picture of the two of you, and so I went to the Ministry," he paused, green eyes boring down at her, as he rubbed the familiar scar. In the years after the war, touching the scar had become a habitual quirk for him, one Ginny recognized as something he'd do when he was losing control. Something from when he was at his peak, the thing that made him unique, famous, the greatest wizard in the world. "I went to Kingsley to ask him if he'd take the stupid protective barriers off, so that you could see me. Don't you know that it's killed me these years, being in the same room as you, seeing you with other wizards, with that, that bigot," he spat, looking up and seeing Draco barely being held back by Arthur.

"It's killed you Harry? Killed you? Really!" Ginny shouted, and the air around her cracked with the power of her anger. "That's a hilarious choice of words considering that I ALMOST DIED." She laughed bitterly, a sound that chilled the room to the bone. "I loved you Harry, I would have done anything for you. I loved you from the first time I saw you, and even though I knew what you were doing, even when we were in school, I loved you. I knew about Cho, and Parvati, and both of the girls from Beauxbatons. But I forgave you anyway. I figured that it was because I was younger, or you were waiting for me to grow up, or you were afraid of my brothers. So I made excuses, I blamed myself, I forgave you, because I loved you." She shook her head sadly, but the tension remained.

"Love, you loved me? What do you know about love? How can you even say that?" Harry shouted back in her face, his jealousy and rage causing him to lose control. "Don't you want to know why you can see me now? Not because Kingsley agreed to drop the barriers. By the time I got to the ministry, they had already fallen. Kingsley told me that the barrier spell was cast to only protect you until you fell in love again." Harry spat again, "You don't know what love is. If you think you loved me, you ever loved me, then you couldn't have done this," he sputtered, "If you have the same heart in your chest that loved me, it would never let you fall in love with THAT." He gestured at Draco, who stood by, now terrifyingly still as a stature, while his steel grey eyes shot hatred back at his rival.

Ginny followed Harry's eyes, and saw the faces of the two men she loved the most in the world, her father and Draco. Sensing their power, their unconditional love and support, Ginny calmed. Her hair rested gently upon her shoulders and a single tear fell down her cheek. She had never looked more beautiful, hair tussled, and cheeks flushed, eyes bright with tears. She reached up and put her hand on Harry's cheek, and Arthur held up a hand to stop Draco from crossing the room to her. "Let her do this on her own lad," he murmured.

"But I did love you Harry. And we might have been together for a lifetime. But we'll never know, because my lifetime almost ended because of you. I might have been able to keep forgiving you for cheating on me. I'm not stupid Harry, I knew that even after we graduated, that there were few witches you'd say no to. Even after we bought the flat together, that there were witches who didn't respect our love that just wanted to say that they'd been with the famous Harry Potter. If you truly loved me, you wouldn't have let those witches be so disrespectful of me as your partner. Because while what you did made you feel better, helped your ego, helped you forget the war, all it did was kill my soul. Every time you came back to me smelling of a strange perfume, or I found lipstick on your robes, a little part of me died inside," she smiled sadly at the bespectacled wizard, but it was not a smile of kindness.

"Ginny, I would have changed. I swear – " he protested, leaning his hand into her, relishing the warmth and touch that he had missed for so long.

"Harry, it's to late. You ruined me. I almost died. And because of the curse the Romanian witches put on you and Ron, Hermione got sick too. It wasn't just our relationship you ruined, you pulled them into it too." George stepped forward unconsciously, but a hand on his shoulder from Blaise prevented him from moving on. Ginny continued, "And even though I survived, I can't have children. Did you know that?" Her voice rose to a higher pitch, one that betrayed the hysteria that was coming upon her. "That even if I had found another wizard, in all the years I was alone, that I knew they'd leave me if they found out I can't have a baby?" She turned around to the silent room, holding her arms wide to the audience, "That's right everyone, Harry's cursed. And his curse means I will never be able to tell my parents that they'll be grandparents. He ruined me. He's your hero, but he's my curse." The pitch of her voice reaching a frightening peak, she crumbled then, down to her knees, collapsing as the sobs wracked her body. Draco was by her side as fast as quicksilver, blocking off Harry's access to her, wrapping himself around her.

Arthur strode across the room and stood between Harry and the fallen couple. "Let her go boy." He shook his head sadly; "She's lost to you now. She's been lost for years. Now that she's found herself again, she's found love with someone else. Let her go."

Harry looked around the pub, for a familiar face, for some support. His eyes met George's, who stepped forward again, but this time Blaise was his backup as a menacing threat. He looked to Hermione, who wouldn't look up at him, instead wrapping a protective arm around a clearly shaken Luna. When he looked down at the witch he once loved, sobbing on the floor, being comforted by another, his heart broke. It had taken him years, and the realization that there wasn't a witch or wizard in the room who was on his side, to acknowledge his wrong. Draco turned then, and growled at him, "Go, and get out of here now, I won't tell you again."

With a pop the hero of the wizarding world apparated from the Leaky Cauldron.

XXXXX

A/N: There's not a lot left before I wrap this up. Dealing Lucius of course, and Draco being snarky, and an epilogue. I'm sorry it's dragging out this long! You've all been really patient and I can't thank you enough for the feedback and reviews. :)