** Author's Note: If you have not read my previous story "When the Bough Breaks" or Kurinoone's Reader's Choice Chapter 11, please do as this will make little sense without the backroud info. Chapter 6 of Reader's Choice is set in the future. It was the inspiration for this fic but its not needed to understand the story.

Child of my Heart: by Analyn 100

Prolouge: In the Name of Love

Harry James Potter sat down in the Stadium, watching as Irish chasers – he had totally forgotten their names – scored another goal securing their lead. His wife stood by his side, cheering with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm. He sighed, when his mother-in-law had suggested a romantic vacation to reconnect, he had imagined dining and dancing, not Quidditch, but as long as Ginny was happy, that was all that mattered.

Over the roar of the crowd, they could hear an all too familiar sound. It was the high pitched wail of a child's cry. Harry groaned, why did people have to take young kids to sports stadiums? Buying the kids game themed toys was all fine and good, but bringing them to a sports stadium at that age? They could hear the sound getting louder, could hear the rustling as someone tried to get past the crowd and to the stairs. Harry and Ginny backed up against the seats as the young mother made her way toward them, cradling a boy who could not have been much over a year old. Harry stopped cold at the realization –the little boy was same age their own son would have been had the pregnancy not ended tragically in the Orc attack by the Market two weeks before his due date. He watched his wife's eyes track the mother as she soothed her child on her way down the stadium steps, her eyes lingering for long moments after the young woman had disappeared from view.

"Ginny…" he began softly, pulling her close to him, kissing her cheek softly. He was not surprised to find fresh tear tracks marring her face.

She shook her head, hugging herself tightly as she struggled out of his arms and retreated down the same steps. At the base of the stairs, she turned the opposite direction of the young mother.

Harry sighed. "Excuse me," he muttered making his way past the last few people in the aisle.

He ran back and forth past the concession stands and advertising booths to the woman's restroom. "Excuse me," he called to a passing elderly woman. "Can you check if my wife is in there? Ginny? She left the game, she's been gone a while and I think –"

The woman nodded. She disappeared into the room, only to reappear with Ginny in tow a few minutes later. The sight that met him was an all too familiar one: Ginny's eyes were puffy and swollen. He reached out his arms to her and she leaned into the offered comfort gratefully.

"Ginny, sweetheart, why are you doing this to yourself? If you want a child so badly, why don't you just stop taking the potion? I hate seeing you like this. Talk to me, please!"

Ginny just sobbed on his shoulder, shaking her head. "I can't, Harry. I just can't…not yet. I'm not ready for that yet."

It had been this way for far too long. Ginny had been closed off to the idea of intimacy for months after Jaime's passing. He had understood, truly he had. The pain had been too fresh. But it had been over a year since Jaime's passing. She had opened up to intimacy again. He had been delighted and then dismayed days later when he had seen his wife measure up her prescription birth control potion for the first time. It was as though she was determined to stay miserable.

Harry had tried to be patient and understanding with her, but he had had enough. He was not a patient man, not by any means. He was a man of action, a man who saw what he wanted and pursued it with everything he had. Was it such a crime to want to see his wife smile again? To see that pregnancy glow and giddy smile again? He had hoped there was another way to heal the hole that the miscarriage had left in their lives, but there wasn't. His parents had been right. The only thing that could heal that gaping chasm in their hearts was another child.

He hadn't wanted to do it. He had hoped that Ginny would come to the conclusion herself but she hadn't. She had forced his hand, for her own good. Last month he had decided to brew the prescribed potion himself with stale ingredients. He had disposed of the potion she had purchased and filled the vials with the useless concoction. He had then scheduled them for joint annual check-ups for just a few days before the potion would run out, for the sole purpose of the pregnancy test that was sure to be included. If his wife went back to the Apothecary and began taking the proper potion again any pregnancy would end just as soon as it had started.

One miscarriage had been tragic; a second would be more than they could bear. He tightened his grip on his wife, holding her close while she muffled her cries on his shoulder. He hoped his plan worked. It had to work.