It was just four and a half months ago when Ginny told him that they were having a baby, and since then Harry had been happier than he could ever remember being. He finally was getting what he had been missing his whole life: a proper family. Sure, the Weasleys had been like a family to him, but they weren't flesh and blood.

But now that family wasn't guaranteed, and Harry was still pleading silently that Ginny was just unconscious as he made his way around the perimeter. There was a door that he had passed as he ran for the window, but being the primary point of entry he thought it would be better to gain access somewhere else. He didn't find another entrance, but at the back of the building he found a cellar door jutting from the ground, reminiscent of old pubs.

As soon as he had jumped down to the cellar, he knew at once why this building reminded him of a pub; the cellar was packed with crates upon grates of bottled beverages. In order to see what kind of beverages, Harry had to wipe off a layer of dust so thick that he couldn't even tell the color of the crates until he did, but even that didn't help him identify the kind of liquid; both the crates and the bottles were labeled with runes. Harry was wondering how old this place actually was as he walked across the cellar, his footsteps completely muffled by dust, and whether he was in danger of being crushed upon seeing the moldy and splintering support beams.

He looked at the ceiling for any kind of entrance, having to push thick spider-infested webs aside as he did. The building was not that big, it seemed to have only the one-roomed cellar, and above, the main room with a smaller one off to the side. Harry was reaching the end of the cellar, and if there wasn't any door here, there wasn't going to be one. He would have to burst in through the front, preparing himself for an attack. However, that wasn't necessary; Harry found a square in the ceiling that wasn't attached to the wood around it; a trapdoor.

Harry pushed up; the door creaked menacingly and bits of the wood fell away as he did. He could feel the mildew within the wood, and before long, there was barely any door left to push. Once the opening was clear, he peeked his head up to survey the room. It was the same as when he looked from the window, but now Harry was within an arm's length of Ginny. From this closer vantage point, he saw that the top half of her shirt was drenched in blood. He watched her closely, but her chest didn't seem to be moving at all.

Panic clenched at his heart as he, abandoning everything he learned in his training, hoisted himself up to the main floor and crawled frantically over towards Ginny. He pulled her head up, and saw where the blood was coming from. Her nose was broken, and there were several cuts on her face, but nothing that looked fatal…so why wasn't she breathing?

"So, I see you've received my note. Nice of you to have the courtesy to show up promptly. Mind you, it won't benefit you at all."

The voice was gritty and the laugh that followed those words was maniacal. Harry twisted around and saw a man standing before him, a man who looked crazed. The first thing Harry noticed were his eyes; they were a peculiar shade of gray, and the left one was lazy, looking somewhere towards where the wall and ceiling met. His hair was brown and wild, and Harry was sure it hadn't been cut, or even washed, anytime recently. The clothes, if you could still call them that, which he wore were dirty and torn, giving the impression that he had been consorting in the woods with werewolves, or leading some other kind of vicious lifestyle. The overall appearance, though not intimidating, was terrifying, because he looked like a man who had no sense of right and wrong, and nothing to lose.

"You'll want to lower that wand, Potter, or something may happen to your precious family. Though, I haven't checked on her in a while, she doesn't seem to be breathing, does she? Pity…but maybe the child is still alive."

"What have you done to her?" Harry was shaking with rage and fear, feeling both helpless and defeated; telling himself that he was lying…this man was lying….

He laughed that maniacal laugh before answering. "What have I done to her? Nothing I won't do to you, you can be sure of that." And with a slash of his wand, Harry felt the skin on his cheek tear open as blood poured down his face. The man laughed some more. "I suppose we should go through introductions. My name is Bancroft Sutton, pureblood. My family goes back ages, back to its humble beginnings in this very pub. The very first Sutton opened this pub many years ago, I couldn't give you a year, there's no record dating back that far, but the important part was what was done with the money earned from this pub.

"Our family quickly became involved in the effort to restore pureblood power and eliminate mudbloods and blood traitors from our society. You can imagine how popular our cause was then, back when breeding between wizards and muggles was just beginning and most people thought it blasphemous, but nowadays people encourage it. I can assure you my position hasn't changed on that matter. Our lifestyle had not always been comfortable, but it has been worth it, because really, killing mudbloods is far more entertaining than anything gold could offer."

"So what do you want with me?"

"With you? I want revenge, Potter. We were so close, so close to a new world order. The ministry was rounding up mudbloods, as they ought to, and then you decided to kill the Dark Lord, and now everything is back to 'normal.' Well, I hate this normal, and I hate you for restoring it. So I've decided to kill you. I'm sorry to inform you that it won't be nearly as dramatic as if the Dark Lord had managed to do it, but I do hope you'll bear with me."

He raised his wand, and Harry mimicked him, which resulted in another slash across his face.

"Didn't I tell you to lower your wand? You are not a very good listener. Perhaps you need more persuading." He ambled over to Ginny and bent down beside her, holding his wand to her head. "Next time you try to defend yourself, you won't be the one getting hurt, Potter. Oh, wait, she's not breathing, is she?" He said with a smile. "Well, in that case…." He lowered his wand to her stomach. Harry dropped his wand as if it had suddenly burned red hot. Bancroft smiled. "Very good…you're learning." He got up and walked back to his former position. "Now, let's see what we can do here…."

Bancroft examined Harry like an artist examining a canvas before he raised his wand and began to make swooping and slashing movements, sometimes causing more cuts, other times what felt like blunt impacts that winded and weakened Harry. Each time that Harry made a noise, or bent over in pain, Bancroft smiled a lopsided smile, his eyes glittering.

"How does that feel?" He asked with a crazed smile when Harry had fallen to all fours, gasping for air that didn't seem to want to enter his lungs. "I suppose you're ready for a break. What else can I share with you…let's see…oh, yes! You may be wondering why I wasn't a Death Eater. Well, it's really quite simple, Potter, Death Eaters get caught, and being locked up in Azkaban would have been very inconvenient towards my sche—Oh!" His speech was stopped because Harry, as soon as Bancroft was looking in another direction, reached for his wand and muttered "Langlock," with what little voice he had left.

At once Bancroft expression turned furious and he started throwing nonverbal spells at Harry, who was on his feet and dodging them. This went on for about a minute before the jinx seemed to have worn off and Bancroft yelled "CONFRINGO!" while waving his wand wildly.

The floor beneath them, already unstable, blast to pieces, and both Harry and Bancroft dropped to the cellar. Harry landed on his back, feeling winded all over again, and hit his head hard on the dusty stone cellar floor. Everything swam before him and blackness hung ominously at the edge of his vision, threatening to take over completely. Harry breathed deeply, willing himself to stay conscious, and started getting to his feet. He saw that his wand had fallen to his right, and he quickly grabbed it while looking up and seeing that the part of the floor that Ginny was on was still intact; she was on the upper level and Bancroft couldn't hurt her now.

A jet of red shot right past his knee and Harry turned towards its source. Bancroft, who was still struggling to regain his balance, was shooting off jinxes and curses indiscriminately, and Harry was all too grateful that Ginny wasn't near his line of fire. Harry began fighting back, shooting hexes while dodging Bancroft's wild attacks. Bottles were shattering everywhere, and soon both of them were soaked in the ancient smelling liquor. In an attempt to dodge the Cruciatus Curse Bancroft had just fired at him, Harry leapt to his left, landing on a fallen bottle and slipping, falling to the floor. He landed with a crash, his glasses sliding to the bridge of his nose and his wand rolling away in front of him. He crawled quickly toward it, but when he was nearly there, he heard Bancroft yell "STOP!" and turned to see that he had his wand pointed towards Harry's head, a gleeful smile on his face.

"So, you thought you could scrape your way through this one too, eh? Well, I don't think so. I think it's time you were repaid in full all the destruction you've caused the Dark Lord, his followers, and me."

Harry looked around frantically, desperate for anything that could get him out of this situation. He couldn't reach for his wand without Bancroft blasting his head off first, and he couldn't just fire something at him because he would be sure to dodge it and return the favor. Harry needed the element of surprise on his side, and just when he was convincing himself that there were no options left for him, he saw it.

"This will show everyone! This will show them that not even The Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One, The One Who Vanquished the Dark Lord is more powerful than a Sutton! I'll restore my name to its former glory, and restore proper wizarding order!"

The remnants from the floor above that had been shattered lay all round them, but the largest pile lay in front of Harry, right behind Bancroft, with the largest shard sticking out straight at them, its edge splintered and pointed.

"And then no one will dare stand up to us! The pureblood regime will reign as the new Ministry of Magic! Mudbloods will be murdered before they're even old enough to realize what monstrosities they are, and breeding with muggles will be punishable by death! Everything will be back to they way it ought to be, and I will be the one to thank for it! And I'll be starting with you Potter, so congratulations; you'll be making history once more.

"Avad-"

"ACCIO!"

Harry had grabbed his wand and pointed it towards the largest shard of wood, and it shot forward, its pointed edge landing in Bancroft's back. It was hardly more than a flesh wound, the wood was so old and mildewed that it couldn't do any real damage, but it was enough to make Bancroft, who wasn't expecting an attack from behind, lower his wand in surprise, and that was all Harry needed.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Bancroft's limbs shot together and he fell forward, completely immobilized. Harry quickly shot a patronus to the ministry, requesting backup, and scrambled to the upper floor without another look at the maniac on the ground behind him.

He dropped himself in front of Ginny, tears mixing with the blood on his face as he tried to forget that she wasn't breathing, forget that he had lost her too, and forget that the family he so desperately wanted was taken from him, just as nearly every other family figure had been. By now, the tears were falling freely, and Harry buried his head in Ginny's chest and cried in earnest.

Harry pulled his head back so quickly that if anyone had been watching they would have thought that Harry heard Bancroft moving downstairs; had he been imagining it, or had he felt her heart beat? He pulled her head up and placed his hand under her noise; he felt her breath against it. He looked at her neck and saw her pulse beating there; he looked at her chest and saw it moving with every breath, she was alive!

Now that he knew it, Harry was sure she had been breathing the whole time, and that in his state of panic, he had overlooked it. Bancroft had been bluffing, he saw Harry's fear and played on it, he had been bluffing the whole time. Harry looked at Ginny's face, which had begun to bruise around the many cuts, and another awful thought struck him: if Ginny had been beaten as badly as it looked like she had, was the baby okay? Harry placed his hand on her stomach and waited…waited…waited….

He felt a kick, small, but there. He could have collapsed with relief. He looked at Ginny's face once more, pointed his wand at it, and gently said "Episky," and her nose repaired itself. He began healing all the cuts, one by one, and siphoning off the blood. Once she looked as though she was simply sleeping, Harry pointed his wand to her chest and said "Rennervate."

Her eyes opened, and immediately widened.

"Harry! What happened? Your face…."

He had forgotten that he too was wearing the signs of battle. "Don't worry, Gin, I'm fine. What happened to you, what did he do?"

"What did who do?" She looked at him at him quizzically, and then urgently as the memory hit her. "Nothing, I just…I was going to the kitchen for a snack, and I heard a noise behind me, and I went to turn…but I blacked out." Harry was relieved, he did all of this after she was unconscious; she didn't feel a thing. "He must have been in the house…Harry! The baby!"

"I just felt it kick, but we're going straight to St. Mungos after this." Ginny nodded in agreement as Harry untied her. Four loud pops sounded from outside, and the backup Aurors stormed into the pub; one of them was Ron.

"Harry! Ginny!" Ron bounded straight for them while two Aurors hopped down into the cellar and the other surveyed the area. He quickly assured Ron that they were both alright, but he looked less than convinced. "What happened?" He asked.

"I think we'd all like to know that," said the surveying Auror as the other two hoisted Bancroft's rigid body up to the main level.

Harry began to tell the story, starting at him finding the note, and ending with him immobilizing Bancroft; he left out how he had thought Ginny was dead. When he was finished, the surveying Auror apparated back to the ministry to fill out paperwork, the other two began transporting Bancroft's body, and Ron refused to leave Harry and Ginny's sides, insisting on helping them get to St. Mungos.

"Well, the more the merrier, and you can let mum know while you're waiting," she said to Ron while hoisting herself up, "come on, let's go make sure little James is okay."

"James?" Harry asked suddenly. "It's a James, not a Lily?"

Ginny's eyes widened once more as she clamped her hands to her mouth. "Oh Harry! I'm sorry! And you wanted to be surprised…."

"No," said Harry with a smile, "I don't mind knowing. Now I can use his name."

As they walked out into the night, Harry placed his arm around Ginny, his wife, and his hand on James, his son, and felt more grateful than ever for everything he had been blessed with.

So there you have it, the grand finale. If you haven't reviewed before now, this is the perfect time, because I've never written anything like this chapter before and I would love some feedback! It only takes a few seconds to let me know how I did, and I would be eternally grateful! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing; I appreciate all of you. I love writing for all of you guys and I hope that you'll continue to read my works in the future! Thank you!

~Izzi