This is the last chapter; thank you for reading! Thanks also to ScottPress for being a great beta, I really appreciate it.

The lyrics in italics in this chapter are of course from Robert Burns' Auld Lang Syne.

Chapter 5

The Year Is Dying in the Night

-oOo-

"Ginny, what's wrong?" Harry asked, his voice very close in the darkness. In the kitchen outside they could hear the din of voices rise and fall, punctuated by occasional laughter. To Ginny, it seemed a long way away.

To hell with it, she thought suddenly. If Harry, not the most perceptive man in the world, had figured out that something was up, he was hardly going to let go just like that. She'd be better off telling him now, she decided somewhat recklessly. Ginny had it up to here keeping secrets from him and Harry deserved to know, for better or worse.

It wasn't going to get any better, anyway.

"Harry, are you sitting down- Hey, why're we in the dark anyway?" she asked irritably. The faint light, slipping in through the crevices around the door frame, was suddenly eclipsed by her Lumos.

The nervous face of her love looked back at her from the same level; Harry had let himself slide down until he was sitting next to her on the flagstones.

"You're not about to tell me that Dolohov is swinging from the chandelier in the library, are you?"

Involuntarily, she smiled.

"No. This is something else. It's about us," she said, the smile disappearing from her face.

"Oh." Harry looked at her, sideways. For a moment, it looked as if he was thinking hard. "Is this the reason you've been so snappy all week?"

"Probably," she said with a grimace, concentrating so hard on trying to work out how to say this that she almost missed the way Harry's knuckles were turning white. He was clinging onto his wand like a drowning man.

Closing her eyes briefly and drawing a breath so deep she could taste the dank air of the basement, Ginny threw herself straight into it. Delicacy had been in short supply among the Weasleys when she was growing up, so she had never learnt how to sugarcoat things.

"I'm pregnant, Harry."

The silence was deafening. The only thing worse than the absolute quiet radiating from Harry was the sound of happy people out in the kitchen. Bastards, the lot of them, Ginny decided on the spot, while wondering why she was feeling so light-headed all of a sudden.

She wouldn't look at Harry; she refused to look, and focused her eyes straight in front of her. It must have been Kreacher who'd left that scratch on the wall. It was far too close to the skirting board for one of-

"Ginny?"

"Don't bloody 'Ginny' me, say something!" she snapped.

"Er- Do- do you want to marry me?" he croaked, and Ginny sighed. The familiar spectre of Harry riding to the rescue was rearing its head again. This was exactly what she had been afraid of.

"Of course I do, Harry, but not like this!"

"What's wrong with this?" he asked stubbornly.

Sometimes, Ginny thought Hermione had been right all those years ago; only that most men had the emotional range of a teaspoon, not just Ron.

"I don't want you to ask me because you feel you have to," she said, in a voice she hoped was steady enough to distract Harry from the tears she could feel pooling in her eyes again. Stupid hormones.

"That's not why I'm asking you."

"Then why are you asking me now, just after I told you I was pregnant?" 'You idiot' hung in the air between them, unspoken.

"Because I didn't think you'd say yes before," Harry explained, as if it was Ginny who was being a bit daft.

"What?"

"I know you don't want to end up like your mum, so I figured there wasn't any use asking you until in a few years' time." It sounded as if Harry had put a lot of thought into this, as he patiently explained his plans for their future. "I was hoping that you'd want to have kids eventually, but I wasn't going to push it until you were ready."

With one of those devastating looks that made Ginny feel like she was ten years old and starstruck again, Harry turned to her, his green eyes shining with sincerity and love.

"All I've ever wanted is to have a family with you. I'm not complaining if it happens a bit sooner than I thought."

Ginny was frozen to the spot. She had never expected this. He had been so very careful not to say anything before, but it was impossible to doubt his honesty now. Just as she was starting to believe him, Harry's face fell and he looked like his heart was being torn out of his chest.

"Unless- unless that's not what you want right now, and you want to- Ginny, of course it's your choice-"

"What are you talking about?" she managed to squeeze out, in a much too high-pitched voice.

"If you don't want to- to go through with it-"

Suddenly she understood what Harry was trying to say, and frowned.

"No! Of course not!" she said quickly, and the horrible, pinched expression on his face dissolved into a grin worthy of the Chudley Cannons winning the cup.

"So we're really going to have a baby?"

"Well, I am," she said dryly, barely concealing the relief beneath.

"And we're getting married?"

"I never said yes, remember," she couldn't help teasing him. A world where Ginny Weasley wouldn't marry Harry Potter when he asked her didn't exist.

"Help a bloke out here! What do you think your brothers will do to me if I get you up the duff without marrying you?"

They dissolved in laughter, and suddenly everything seemed bright and wonderful and as if it was going to be all right, and if Ginny cried a little Harry must have pretended not to notice.

"It's almost midnight. Shouldn't we get the champagne out?" Harry finally reminded her.

"I can't drink it, you idiot!" Ginny couldn't stop giggling; relief and joy kept bursting through.

"What about the rest of us? Just because you can't have any doesn't mean we should suffer," Harry said, happiness bubbling just beneath the surface. He couldn't have been serious to save his life.

"All right then." Right now, Ginny would agree to anything. "You'd better remember this."

"When?"

"Whenever I want you to do something for me, of course. The champagne cases are in the wine cellar," she instructed him.

When they emerged into the kitchen, champagne cases in tow - Ginny's Butterbeers temporarily forgotten - nothing seemed to have changed. The noise level still rivalled the Great Hall at Hogwarts at feeding time and Cho Chang still seemed to be good-naturedly putting up with Dennis Creevy peeking down her cleavage. What appeared to be a singing contest between Morag MacDougal and Seamus was still raging, with the girl Seamus had brought with him acting as a slightly star-struck audience of one.

"Where in the name of Olaf the Hairy and all his merry vikings have you two been?" a red-haired whirlwind asked them in exasperated tones, as he descended on them and almost knocked over the champagne. Further examination revealed to be George: he was too stocky to be Ron and too tall to be Charlie.

"What does it look like?" Ginny asked. She had learnt many things from her brothers, not least how not to answer questions.

"Did you have to dig a tunnel to the off-license to get that, or just Portkey over to France? Malfoy's gone, in case you're interested."

"Really?" Harry asked.

"Nah, I just turned him into a toad and stepped on him. Just kidding, Ginny!" George told them. "Hermione called in the Aurors - yes, Harry, I know you're an Auror too, but these were the poor sods actually on duty - and he just left. You'd think spending the guts of ten years trying to get one up on our Miss Granger would have taught him something. Apparently hope springs eternal even in the bosoms of Slytherins ."

"Can we not talk about Malfoy's bosom, George?" Ginny begged, as a wave of nausea reminded her there was more to being pregnant than telling the father.

With combined forces the three of them got the champagne out in the hall, and at ten to twelve Harry's magically reinforced voice asked everyone to join them to count in the new year.

It was Morag MacDougal who started the singing. After hearing only a few words in Morag's clear, high voice most of the rest of them joined in. They had spent a significant part of their lives in Scotland, after all, and McGonagall had made sure her students learnt the proper Scottish version.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And auld lang syne?

Linking her hands with Seamus and Dean Thomas, Sarah was completely surrounded by Gryffindors who were better at singing loud than they were at singing well. Regardless, the intoxicating mix of Seamus, champagne and the sensation of being a part of something great made her feel that there was nowhere else she'd rather be right now.

Picking out Ginny Weasley in the crowd spilling onto the landings, Sarah was content to see whatever had been the matter with her seemed to have blown over now. Singing with the rest and clutching Harry's and George's hands in hers, even Sarah could tell that the youngest Weasley was beaming with happiness.

Ginny looked so bright and assured of her place in the world, in the thick of the crowd teeming with her family and friends, that Sarah felt a little jealous. Trying to clear her head a little, she looked away, through the window to the deserted square outside. To her surprise something was shining in the moonlight, near the iron fence encircling the decaying park which occupied the middle of Muggle Grimmauld Place. Once she was looking straight at it, Draco Malfoy's pale head of hair was unmistakable.

She knew that the enchantments laid on the house made it impossible, but Sarah could have sworn that her eyes met Malfoy's just before he pulled up his hood and melted into the shadows. He must have been here as a boy, she thought, absently remembering his mother was a Black.

Sarah had always loathed Malfoy, but now she felt an absurd pang of sympathy for him. How lonely did you need to get before spending New Year's Eve lurking outside the house of your arch-nemesis became an appealing prospect?

Inside the house, the last few lines of the old song echoed through the hall and her mind swivelled back to those inside.

Celebrating the new year at Grimmauld Place was everything Sarah had hoped it would be. It was better than the celebrations after the Battle of Hogwarts; much better. They finally seemed to have figured out how to live.

It was difficult to say no to Neville, Hermione thought ruefully. For her, especially. He so seldom asked for anything at all, so when he barrelled into her as soon as she emerged from the moping session in her room and asked her to come with him into the drawing room, she followed him without demur.

The drawing room was empty. It was on the same floor as Hermione's bedroom, so the teeming masses downstairs hadn't been allowed up there. Faintly, she could hear the beat of her enchanted boom box playing Muggle hits downstairs, otherwise the room looked the same as it always did. Neville's messenger bag laid abandoned on a chair, smelling of something earthy, and a pile of manuals on health and safety policies Harry swore he would get around to read over the Christmas holidays were piled on the table.

Normally, Hermione would have been delighted to get some time alone with Neville, but not now. Her ruminations on how impossible it was that anything would ever happen between them seemed to be reinforced by the familiarity of their surroundings.

Downstairs, there were bright lights and people dressed to the nines, and even champagne that they reluctantly had pitched in to get for a midnight toast. Up here were Neville and Hermione, and tonight seemed to be no different to any other night in Grimmauld Place.

Then Neville turned around, and the way his eyes were blazing told Hermione this was no run-of-the-mill conversation.

"What's going on, Neville?" she asked him sharply, instincts only half-buried awakening fast. "Is it Malfoy?"

"No! No, it's not Malfoy," he hastened to assure her, but then he seemed to be curiously reluctant to tell her what had made him pull her in here. Neville ran his fingers through his hair, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand the way he'd done when he was eleven and couldn't find Trevor.

"Ron told me-" he started, before changing his mind and interrupting himself.

Hermione felt a chill which had nothing to do with the lack of a fire in the drawing room. Don't let Ron have gone and opened his big mouth again, she thought despairingly. Please let him have kept it to himself this one time, just this once...

She had always considered it extremely unfortunate that the only Weasley possessing an ounce of discretion was Percy.

When Hermione was mentally cursing Ron's loose lips, Neville appeared to have plucked up his courage.

"Right. Here goes," he announced. "Hermione. I'm sure you know already, but just in case." He was speaking in jagged, short sentences, and he had her full attention now. "Just so you know. I'm in love with you. You don't need to do anything," he rushed to say, "nothing will change. Ro- I just thought I'd better tell you."

That made no sense. She was pretty certain she would have noticed if Neville returned her almost obsessive interest, but he had shown no sign of having any more tender feelings than he had for Harry, say, until tonight-

Oh.

If there was anyone among her friends who would try to comfort her, after seeing her being driven off by Malfoy, it was Neville. Gods knew he knew well enough what it was like to have your weaknesses shoved in your face, so it wasn't a massive leap for him to come up with this daft scheme to comfort her.

He probably didn't even realise why it was unlikely to succeed.

"Listen Neville, it's not that I don't appreciate it," Hermione said, almost pleadingly. Trying to hold the tears at bay, she cursed Fate for having made her fall in love with someone who was kind-hearted to a fault. She couldn't think of anyone else who would have tried to cheer her up in quite the same way, but it wasn't that unexpected coming from Neville. He could hardly be blamed for not having noticed that she had fallen head over heels for him, not when she had tried her best to hide it.

"I knew you asked me to the Yule Ball 'as a friend' in fourth year, and I know it's no different now," Hermione continued. She managed to sound almost breezy, while hoping she wasn't betraying just how much she would have wanted it to be different now.

She hadn't looked straight into Neville's eyes when delivering her little speech. There wasn't enough fortitude in the world to do that, even for her. Stealing a quick look at him from under her eyelashes, Hermione tried to draw comfort from his familiar shape, but instead it felt as if she was losing him. His hands, scrubbed shining clean for the party, were still and empty for once. There was a sharp twinge in her heart, as if they were an omen for her future.

"But it is," Neville said, surprise written large across his face. He took a step forward, stretching his hands out to take hold of hers. Hermione could no sooner have extracted her hands from his warm clasp than she could have burst through the window and flown away on the wings of the winter night without a wand.

"Everything is different now, you see," he said gently. "Everything. Ever since I came back from Australia. I just didn't know you felt the same way."

A few bars of Auld Lang Syne drifted in from the crowd on the stairs, which was singing loud enough to break through the Silencing charms. Hermione clearly needed to make more of an effort to keep out the sound of fifty Gryffindors singing their hearts out. They did it with the same abandon as they brought to everything else, and Hermione's heart suddenly swelled with affection for her friends out there.

And there's a hand, my trusty friend!

And gie's a hand o' thine!

For the first time since he had launched into his speech, Hermione raised her eyes to look at Neville. What she saw in his face made her own eyes blaze even brighter, and she brushed her fingers from his temple, down across his cheek, ever so tenderly.

Suddenly, looking and touching gingerly wasn't anywhere near enough and she was kissing him with everything she had in her. After the initial surprise he kissed her back with the same enthusiasm, and everything else drifted into the background.

Downstairs, the last line rang out:

We'll take a cup of kindness yet,

For auld lang syne

-oO THE END Oo-

If you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I did writing it!

Reviews are most appreciated and any constructive criticism is very welcome. Anything you want to share will help me write a better story the next time.