ONE
Every single time Ginny Weasley has sex with Harry Potter, she tells herself it’ll be the last time. It wasn’t always this way, of course. When they were dating, for example, she had no intention of stopping. But her reasons for breaking up with him had been better than the sex — no small feat because the sex was earth shatteringly good. It still is incredible, actually, and she tells herself that’s what makes this particular habit so difficult for her to break. If she were being honest, she’d confess that the only real way for her to stop entirely would be if she never saw Harry again. And of all the things that Ginny Weasley knows, chief among them is that her life is and always will be — somehow, no matter what she does — inextricably tied to Harry Potter.
She supposes she could blame her brother Ron for that one. Being Harry’s best mate, he brought Harry into the fold. Her mother loves to collect people — not in the creepy way that their old professor Slughorn does, but in a wholesome taking in strays and giving family to people who don’t have any kind of way. And Harry was always Molly’s favorite member of the Weasley People Collection. So Ginny breaking up with Harry was not enough to get him disinvited from Sunday lunch or to stop Molly from throwing him elaborate birthday dinners. And why would it be? As much as Ginny hated to admit it, Harry had long ago graduated from cherished member of the People Collection to full-blown honorary Weasley; this would not be a big deal were it not for the fact that Ginny’s feelings toward Harry had never been particularly sisterly.
Though they never really discussed how they’d handle it, at first, they took turns begging off of family dinners. Harry would be on a mission for the aurors one week, Ginny would have intensive training in Holyhead the next. That was never sustainable, though; they should have known it was only ever a temporary fix. Because Ginny’s mother was nothing if not persistent, and it was inevitable that she’d insist on having her whole family at dinner — and that’s exactly how she’d said it, tone laden with guilt. And so they made it nearly four months before having to see each other after the breakup. With the madness of Ginny’s niece and Harry’s godson and all of the rowdy Weasley brothers, it really was all too easy to slip away unnoticed for a quick shag in her childhood bedroom. That’s when the backsliding began.
Despite Ginny’s better judgement, this continued for roughly three years, basically every time they saw each other. She told herself that it was fine — she needed release and sleeping with her ex had to be healthier than having casual flings with unknown men, didn’t it? And between her quidditch schedule and her obligations to her family, it wasn’t like she had much time to date; neither did he. And his status as Harry Potter would have made that difficult for him anyway. So Ginny told herself it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. She told herself she could give it up whenever she wanted. She reassured herself that as long as it didn’t go on forever, no one was getting hurt.
For three years, she ignored the way she clung to updates about him from her brother, every little piece of his life he didn’t share with her in the course of a hookup. She disregarded the tightening in her chest and the fluttering in her stomach when they were together, noticing that he never stopped noticing her, anticipating her desires and giving them to her without her having to ask. And she refused to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t only about sex — not for her, and maybe not for him either.
And that’s, of course, how she ended up here: huddled over a cauldron in the bathroom of her tiny flat, trying to work up the courage to prick her finger and pinch a drop of blood into the potion.
A weird thing about sleeping with someone you once seriously dated is how easy it is to become negligent. Of course, she’d always been careless when it came to Harry — certainly where her emotions are concerned. Still, if she were dating someone new, she would confirm, for example, if he cast a contraceptive charm before they had sex. She knew Harry, though, and Harry was always prepared; besides, she was on the potion and it served her well. The warning she got from her healer every year, that even magical birth control can fail, barely registered to her. She was never worried. She knew with a sense of (she knows now, misguided) certainty that between the two of them, she was safe.
She knows the answer the potion currently swirling in her cauldron will give her before she pricks her finger. The symptoms are too clear to ignore. She could tell herself that it feels like any other stomach flu or time where she overworked herself on the pitch to the point of being fatigued and nauseated, but she knows that would be a lie. This time feels different, and that’s why she knows in the pit of her stomach that it’s real.
A Gryffindor, she’s supposedly brave — that’s why she professionally plays a sport that involves flying in the air and having heavy metal balls racing at you at top speed, isn’t it? — but it takes her a full half hour to work up the nerve to use the potion. For a moment, she tells herself maybe she’s overreacting, and once she proves that she isn’t , well, you know, the nausea and the bone-deep exhaustion and the sore breasts will go away. Psychosomatic, Hermione once said muggles called things like that — you get it in your head that you have an injury or illness, and suddenly the symptoms appear. So she mutters the spell, letting a zap of magic prick her finger; turning her head away and squeezing her eyes shut tight, she squeezes a drop of blood into the liquid swirling before her.
She’s never actually used this potion herself, but she knows how it’s supposed to work: the potion would not change if she wasn’t, and would turn a shimmery gold if she was. From what she’d been told, the results would be more or less instantaneous, but could take up to a minute. She unscrews her eyes after ten seconds and is relieved to see the same dull orange from before swirling around the small pewter cauldron she’d rarely used since her school days. But as soon as she registers it, something has changed: the potion has turned metallic, undeniably gold. If she weren’t so freaked out, she’d acknowledge that the color was beautiful.
As despondent as the result makes her feel, she can’t bring herself to cry. In the muggle movies she’d seen with Harry (when they’d been dating) and Hermione (once they’d broken up), the instinct is always to take more tests, but she doesn’t think there’s much use when the test itself is magic. She accepts that the potion is correct. She’s not much of a crier, anyway, if she’s honest. She’d much prefer to dive into action.
Though she loves her niece — will certainly love any future nieces and nephews her brothers may give her — and has always known she wants to be a mum one day — it’s clear to her that she can’t have a baby right now. The time simply isn’t right. She’s currently the best quidditch player she’s ever been, and she knows deep down that she’s not even reached her peak. She’s only getting better. That, and she’s not married, not even in a relationship with the father of whatever is growing inside of her; he’s just her ex-boyfriend-turned-fuckbuddy and he barely has time to have a conversation with her when they’re alone, let alone be a dad.
She pulls out a piece of parchment to write to him. We need to talk, she imagines scrawling in red ink. But she thinks about it a second too long, and wonders if he even really needs to know. Ginny isn’t quite sure whether Harry will be thrilled with this development or angry at her and himself — it could really go either way, knowing him — but regardless, she’s going to break his heart. If she’s not having a baby, anyway, it occurs to her that maybe she can just keep it to herself. A little secret that never hurt anyone.
Her first instinct, instead, is to write to Luna — understanding and unfailingly progressive, Luna would absolutely be supportive of Ginny’s choice — but she’s off chasing wrackspurts or nargles in Iceland at the moment. She won’t be much help from there, if Ginny manages to reach her at all. Her mum is out of the question; Molly would be too thrilled at the prospect of another grandchild, especially if she managed to learn that Harry was the father of said child. No, her mum would try to convince her to have the baby, once she got over the shock that Harry and Ginny had sex out of wedlock (or any relationship at all, really). Fleur, her sister-in-law, isn’t the worst idea, except that she is often too exhausted by her toddler to keep a secret from her husband, Ginny’s brother Bill. And Bill can’t know, for obvious reasons.
Sighing, Ginny realizes she has maybe one other woman she can count on to be helpful and sympathetic. Setting quill to parchment, she hastily scribbles: Can you come over? Need advice. Xx, Ginny. P.S. Don’t mention this to the boys. She walks over to her owl Mammoth (the smallest owl of the bunch when she got him, she thought the name rather clever), and ties the parchment to his leg. “Bring this to Hermione Granger.”