Broken Friends

Ginny slowly sat down at the table in number twelve, Grimmauld Place. She was in a state of deepest melancholy. At the start of Harry's sixth year, her fifth, her mother had forbidden her, Fred, George and Ron from talking to Harry out of fear that Voldemort would come after them. She had disobeyed her mother and started dating Harry. After her graduation from Hogwarts, Harry had proposed, and shortly after her eighteenth birthday they had married. Since then, her mother refused to talk to her. Now, Ginny was pregnant, almost full term, and she wanted her mother to know her children, but her mother still refused to yield, even though Harry had triumphed over Voldemort. Secretly, Fred and George were still talking to her and Harry, and Luna and Neville practically lived in Grimmauld Place (though Ginny suspected that they wanted help planning their own wedding, but she kept quiet about this). True, she had many friends, and true she was happy with Harry, far happier than she had thought, but this didn't make up for the loss of her family. Ron and Hermione had invited her to their wedding but she couldn't go without Harry, (Fred and George had told her that their 'dear' mother had stopped them from inviting Harry).

She heard a faint pop as Harry appeared beside her in the kitchen. Since he had become an Auror he had been determined to prove that he wasn't just a famous name, and so had been working late.

"How was work?" Ginny asked hiding her sadness with a tired grin.

"Well, Mad-Eye is after retiring for the tenth time this year, Malfoy Senior is after making another attempt to get out of Azkaban and I thing we may have a witness which puts Draco on the scene, but she is to scared of what he will do to come forward, or so I heard," answered Harry.

Harry noticed his wife lack of energy. Ever since her mother refused to meet her after the wedding, and especially since she became pregnant, Harry felt anger at Molly. He could understand her worrying about her children, but now that Voldemort was gone it was a different story. Ginny needed her, especially now. She wasn't even nineteen and she was about to have her first child, her mother should be with her. As much as Harry wanted to be able to help his wife, he was no use when it came to a woman's matters.

"Come to bed, I have tomorrow off, we can talk then."

Slowly Harry helped her upstairs, where he met Neville and Luna, who smiled weakly, just about to leave. Just then Ginny stopped and said to Luna, as Harry had got talking to Neville about his the upcoming wedding "Luna, I- I thinks it's time." Luna paled, which was strange. "Are you sure?" Ginny nodded, trying to make the smile, which came on her face to be reassuring. Luna, with a sudden spark of authority, ushered the men down stairs, then came back to Ginny and said

"Men are useless in this situation," before guiding Ginny gently into a room.

***

Harry was drumming his fingers on the kitchen table. He wasn't used to feeling as useless as he did right then. Neville smiled, but, even though he had said this was a special event for Harry and Ginny, he looked as if this was his first child as well. Suddenly two pops broke the silence of the kitchen. Fred and George stood in the middle of the room looking as if they had run to Grimmauld Place instead of Apparating.

"How is she?" they asked in unison.

"We don't know," said Neville.

Fred and George had been trying to convince Ron and Hermione to come and see Harry and Ginny when they had received Harry's owl. Both of them knew what Harry was going through. George had four of his own- two boys and two girls (no twins), while George had twin boys. They sat down. Their baby sister was about to become a mother, and they had to support her, whatever their mother said.

Twenty minutes later, Luna came walking in.

"How are they?" said four voices. Addressing Harry, Luna said

"Which they? The three beautiful sons of yours, or your wife and sons together?"

Harry sat stunned for a moment before the realization of Luna's words sank in. Luna took Harry by the shoulder and led him up to the room where Ginny lay. There, wrapped in blue blankets where three little boys, a few wisps of black hair just visible. Ginny was sitting upright, beads of sweat were glinting in the candlelight. She vained sleep, and under partly closed eyelids watched Harry bend over his three sons. She had rarely seen him look so happy. In amazement she watched tears of happiness slip down his face, before she descended into sleep.

When Ginny woke, golden bars of sunlight were streaming into the bedroom. Someone had conjured up three cots and had laid the babies into them, and Fred and George were leaning over them. Asleep in a chair across from her was Harry. Since they had married, she had never seen him sleep so soundly. If only the rift between the rest of her family was so easy to heal, she thought before she slipped into sleep. Fred and George stared in amazement at their three new nephews. They had Harry's untidy black hair, and Ginny's hazel eyes. It was with a renewed strength that they decided it was time to get their mother to end this stupid fiasco. She had three beautiful grandsons, and she was going to be there for them.

***

Molly Weasley always thought of herself as a woman that could deal with what the world could throw at her. But when word reached her about Ginny, she felt she had been wrong. She should have been there. She had let her only daughter down, and badly. Harry was always nice, kind-hearted, easy to like and he obviously loved Ginny. The real reason she has continued not talking to him was because she was ashamed of what she had done. She had rejected him when he needed friends most, when he needed a mother most. He should despise her, he should want to curse her into oblivion. He could curse her into oblivion, he was exceptionally powerful. He didn't even need a wand to perform spells. He was a rarity in the wizarding world. Hand-wizards, as they were known, were wizards whose powers exceeded the power of any wizard alive. She feared him. He could perform magic she could only dream of. But he did not hate her. True, he hated what she had done, but as Fred and George were always saying, he wanted to mend the old wounds. How they knew this she could only guess, and they were probably the right guesses. Shakily she sat down, just as Fleur and Bill came in, their young son swinging of Bill's neck and laughing. Smiling weakly, she decided that too much time had passed to mend old wounds.

***

ELEVEN YEARS LATER

Ginny furiously plucked at the weed's in the garden of Grimmauld Place. She didn't know why, but the Muggle way of gardening always-seemed satisfying to her. Harry, James and Sirius were happily helping Fred and George in their joke shop, so she had the entire day to herself to tidy up the house. A faint pop behind her made Ginny jump. George smiled weakly before saying,

"The boys are coming home with Lee Jordan. Mum's going on a rampage through the shop. Apparently, Fred slipped a Fanged Frisbee and several acid pops into Fleur and Bill's shopping, and mum went silly over it."

Ginny sighed and looked at her brother. The look on his face told her something was wrong. Fear took hold her.

"What happened?"

George looked wary before saying, "A snake got into the shop, a really poisonous one. No one was hurt though because the boys stopped him."

Ginny knew the answer before she asked the question, "They're Parselmouths?"

George nodded. Ginny had expected this; Harry was one after all.

"There is something else," George said. "They were talking to Mum. She screamed herself hoarse at them that they were illegitimate, that they were a disgrace, she thought that they set the snake on her. They were really shaken by it. I think you should tell them what happened all those years ago."