Deathly Hallows is canon. Slight tweak on the epilogue as Teddy lives with the Potters. Post series tidbits from JK Rowling are not necessarily followed either, i.e. Ron is still an Auror and doesn't work at the joke shop with George.

Teddy is 16, James is 10, Al is 8, and Lily is 6

"Brontide"

"Chapter One: The Curse"

It had been a spell from a Bulgarian smuggler that nearly killed the legendary Harry Potter. It had been a blood red and Harry had no idea what it was meant to do. As soon as it collided with his chest, he felt a surge of unbelievable pain ripple throughout his chest and stomach. He collapsed instantly upon impact, his head smashing against the wooden wharf. His fingers grazed the dark water below him as they desperately tried to grasp his wand before it could float away.

People screamed jinxes, hexes, and his name. It all blurred and blended together. Harry blinked and watched as the moonlight danced on the endless blackness of the water. His eyes struggled to stay open as his breathing became more ragged.

He knew, in that moment, he was dying. His vision swarmed with black dots while his heart rate slowed dramatically. He could barely breath. Sharp intakes of breath were all he could manage through the overwhelming pain. Sliding his eyes shut so he couldn't see his impending doom, he thought of only one thing: long, shimmering red hair in the sunlight. He thought of the haphazard pattern of freckles across her small, pale nose. If he concentrated enough, he could feel her warm breath tickling his neck as her body pressed against his in all the right ways.

"Flummadiddle or Voorpret?" her voice rang in his ears, full of laughter and joy.

His brows furrowed against the cool and damp wood, falling into the memory. If he concentrated hard enough, he could remember the wide grin on her face and glint in her eyes as she held the tiny Eastern Screech-Owl in her hands with his wide yellow eyes and red feathers. She had been so excited as she had never seen such an owl before that Harry had bought the bird on the spot.

"Flummadiddle and Voorpret? Gin, can't we just name him something normal?" he questioned her with amusement ringing in his voice.

"Cattywompus? Snickersnee? Flibbertigibbet? No offense, but I will not own a pet with a boring name like Harry or something."

"Think my name's boring, do you? We can't all be blessed with such fantastic names like Ginevra."

"Say it again and you'll have bats flying out of your nostrils, Potter."

Laughter rang in his ears in the distance. He couldn't tell if it was real or if he had slipped into the memory completely. His mind flickered to Flummadiddle the owl (who everyone called Flumm except for Ginny who insisted on using his full name and often tried to recruit the children to join her). He was ancient at this point and nearing the end of his life. Ginny always had a weird bond with the owl. She said her and old Flumm were kindred redheaded spirits. Harry had never seen someone actually cuddle with an owl before but somehow Ginny would get the small little thing to sit on her shoulder and snooze against her neck in a cave of red hair like it was her old pygmy puff. Arnold was a normal name he mused as he smiled in his mind.

He wanted to buy her another red owl and laugh at her name choices. He wanted to tease her if it didn't take to her like Flumm had and joke about being so-called kindred redheaded spirits. He wanted to see her laugh like a maniac as she lined up all the kids' pygmy puffs onto the kitchen counter and have them all jumping up to catch the treats she tossed in midair. She had insisted on buying each child a pygmy puff for Easter a year ago. He wanted to toss their ginger, three-legged cat they rescued named Jackalope ("Don't you dare call him Jack, Harry Potter. It's Jackalope. He hates being called Jack. Don't be a prat.") onto her side of the bed when the blasted animal tried to sleep on his pillow. His heart clenched oddly in his chest at the thought of Ginny and her absurd naming ability. He tried to open his eyes and not let sleep wash over him. He wasn't entirely sure he would wake up if he fell asleep.

"Auror Potter! Auror Potter!"

A jagged, sharp sigh escaped his bluing lips. He forced himself to think of something other than his wife. He could picture his eldest son James sitting with a dictionary open on his lap with Ginny sitting beside him. He looked like a carbon copy of Ginny except for his inky black hair and square spectacles that were always perched on his nose. He had her brown eyes and insane number of freckles scattered all over his body. He took an interest in fun names for pets like Ginny and had named his violently electric blue pygmy puff Bumfuzzle.

Harry coughed as he felt cool hands touching his neck. He tried to move his head, hell even his eyes, to see who had knelt beside him but realized he couldn't. There was no strength left to even move a muscle. The pain in his limbs was nearly unbearable. His mouth felt dry like a desert as he forced his mind to think of his family. He wanted to see them all one last time.

His mind wandered to Teddy. The teenager who had always been as much of a Potter as any of his other kids. He was the protector of the family and made sure to watch out for all the younger kids. Not just his godsiblings but also all the Weasley cousins. Harry's heart clenched as he pictured Teddy carefully flying around the back garden with Lily situated in front of him as he taught her how to fly. Lily's childish laughter rang in his head and her face, so like Ginny's, flashed across the back of his eyelids.

He wagered that Teddy, James, and Lily all took after Ginny with their free-spirits and mischievous behavior. They were always playing pranks and running amuck around the house like a herd of hippogriffs. Then, there was Albus. Harry couldn't help but look at Al and see himself. Everything from his physical appearance to his sassy moods to his unbelievable stubbornness was pure Harry.

He thought of all five of them as a hand rolled him over onto his back. The calming effect of the water on his fingers was ripped away from him. He tried to open his eyes but was met with so many tiny black dots that he couldn't make out who hovered above him.

"Harry, come on, Harry, keep your eyes open for me, mate," a familiar voice sounded as though it were on the other end of a very long tunnel.

Harry's tongue peeked out of his mouth a fraction of an inch to lick his bottom lip as a cool hand tapped his cheek gently. All he tasted was a metallic tang. He was only vaguely aware of the uncomfortable feeling of blood pouring out of the side of his mouth. He hurt all over. He had to see his family one last time but he wanted to let go to stop the pain.

"Is it safe to Apparate with him?" the familiar voice shouted in a frantic tone, seemingly even further away.

Harry forced his eyes open. He had to know who the voice belonged to. With every bit of strength he had left in him, he forced his eyelids open just a sliver. Through the mass of black specks, he saw flaming red hair. He immediately thought of Ginny and Lily but knew that it was neither of them.

"Rrrrrr…" Harry tried to say his best mate's name but couldn't get the words out.

He coughed and felt the blood sputter from his mouth. A hand gripped his shoulder tightly and kept him securely flat on the hard, wooden wharf. His eyes slipped closed. He felt very tired and welcomed sleep like an old friend.

"Auror Potter, can you hear me? I'm a Healer. I'm here to help you. Please, stay with us."

The new voice sounded slightly distorted as though he were underwater. Except, the words meant nothing to him. He was too busy staring ahead. Standing in front of him with a wide grin on his face was Sirius Black. He looked younger than Harry could ever remember seeing him. He looked exactly like he had in the photograph tucked away in his photo album he had as a kid that currently resided in his home office. A photo that had been taken at his parents' wedding.

"Harry," Sirius' voice was so clear in his head albeit sad sounding.

"We're losing him!" a faraway voice rang from somewhere above them.

Harry looked up but saw nothing except blackness. In fact, all around them they were engulfed by a boundless darkness. Sirius was the only person in the pitch black. The only thing that had color, had depth, that moved. Harry felt his heart sink to the bottom of his stomach.

"Sirius?" Harry gaped as he tried to close the space between them but found himself rooted in place as though invisible vines held him there. "Please, don't… this isn't…"

Harry jolted back with a gasp. His eyes fluttered open to stare at the inky sky above him littered with bright specks. Voices shouted around him. Harry fought back against the black dots that were scattered across his vision. A low, guttural moan escaped his lips as he felt pressure on his chest.

"Patch the wound enough so he doesn't bleed out! We need to get him to the hospital before he crashes again!" a voice ordered through the same echoing tunnel as before.

There was rustling around him as people chattered and applied more pressure onto his body. The commotion around him was muffled still and he couldn't comprehend the bustling noises around him.

"Erin, Albus? Really?" Ginny's voice rang in his head again. "Of all the things to name a pygmy puff."

"It's Erinaceous. Erin for short. It means something that looks like a hedgehog, which she kind of does look like a hedgehog, Mum. A vibrant green hedgehog but a hedgehog nonetheless."

"I refuse to call that adorable little thing Erin. You're Erinaceous, aren't you? Don't let Albus give you a boring nickname."

"Send word ahead. He'll probably crash again upon arrival!"

His whole world sucked in around him. Bile rose in his throat at the familiar sensation of Apparating became apparent.

"Harry," a confident voice spoke clearly next to him.

"Sirius?" Harry turned his head to see his godfather looking morosely ahead of him.

"You need to fight," Sirius whispered as he inclined his head forward.

Harry turned his attention to the scene in front of him. There was a body covered in blood on a trolley at St. Mungo's. It took Harry several moments to realize that the body was his. His face was so pallid that it looked translucent. His mop of black hair streaked with grays stuck to his forehead due to the sweat on his face. His Auror robes were ripped open as two Healers tended to the nasty looking wound on his sternum while another Healer pointed her wand over Harry's heart.

The body rose in the air slightly as a beam of white light collided with his chest. Harry, who watched the scene unfold in front of him, touched his hand to his chest where he had felt the small jolt.

"I'm dying," Harry whispered.

"You are," Sirius confirmed grimly. "As much as I would love to have you with me again, you're far too young to die. You have a wife, children, a godson… go back, Harry."

The white light shot from the Healer's wand again and Harry gasped. His eyes blinked around the room. The distorted shouting continued, the black dots lingered, and Harry didn't know how much longer he would be able to hold on. Sirius' face seemed to be burned into his eyelids. He had waited so long to see his godfather again, had dreamed often of the man being by his side once more.

More shouting. More pressure. Flashes of light. Sterile whiteness. Pain. Longing. Harry struggled to stay awake, struggled not to succumb to the loll of death. He pictured the long, shimmering red hair again. He concentrated on her infectious laugh so hard that he thought he could actually hear her in the room. Thinking of her was the only thing that kept him alive.

The Jack Russel Terrier Patronus glided through the parlor wall right as Ginny was attempting to shuffle the kids upstairs to go to bed. Ron's shaky and strangled voice filled the room, vibrating off the walls. The morose tone had stilled the room. The children instantly stopped complaining about bedtime. Jackalope stopped attempting to bat at the congregation of the pygmy puffs that hopped merrily around the coffee table. It became eerily quiet in the normally loud Potter household.

"Harry's hurt. Bad. They just Apparated him to St. Mungo's. He… he… Ginny, I don't know if he's going to make it. You need to get here as quickly as possible. Bring the kids. I… they… we might have to say goodbye."

The children snapped into action as Ginny took control of the room. They had to Floo to St. Mungo's. There was no way she could Apparate them all with her limbs shaking as badly as they were. She knew she'd Splinch them all. She put Teddy, whose hair had turned as black as his godfather's at the chilling news, in charge of Lily. She watched as he swirled in the fireplace with the small girl clenched in his arms. She trusted James to go by himself next.

James was the very embodiment of his father's personality. He tried his best to stay brave, strong, and resilient. He kept a stiff upper lip when one of his siblings would get hurt. Ginny could remember with clarity the time Al had wandered away at the local Muggle Christmas market two years ago. Teddy had been frantic and Lily cried for her brother. Little James marched along the crowd silently with his father in search for the lost little boy.

Ginny saw the same resolve in her son as he disappeared in the fireplace. A look of stoic determination was plastered across his freckly face as the flames licked around his body. Ginny stepped in last with a hand on Al's shoulder. She threw the pinch of powder down and disappeared.

After speaking to the Welcome Witch, Ginny raced through the corridors of St. Mungo's. Teddy was directly to her right as he carried a wailing Lily. A pale James walked briskly to her left with his hand clenched tightly around his little brother's hand.

After what seemed like an eternity, they arrived in a small waiting room. Ron was already there and waiting for them to arrive. He sat hunched over on a sofa with his hands clenched in his hair. Ginny noticed the dried blood on the backs of his hands and on the sleeves of his Auror robes. She knew instantly whose blood that was.

"Uncle Ron!" Al shouted as he broke away from his family.

"Hey, Al," Ron croaked as he looked up and held his arms open for the child.

"What happened?" Ginny whispered.

Ginny sank down onto a threadbare sofa opposite of her brother. The rest of her children followed suit as they clamored around her like a shield. She couldn't even tell whose hand was who's as their limbs all attempted to wrap themselves around her.

"He was hit with a curse. I don't know what. I didn't see. It took him down instantly," Ron explained in a near monotone voice. "There was so much blood. It was everywhere. I think there was internal damage because he started coughing up blood too. He stopped breathing at one point before they transferred him here. They had to revive him."

The hands on the clock above them ticked away at an excruciatingly slow rate. Molly and Arthur Weasley arrived sometime after Ginny and the kids had. Soon after they appeared, the other Weasleys started spilling into the waiting room. Next came George who took a spot next to Ron and wrapped an arm around his little brother. Bill and Victoire arrived next. Victoire instantly enveloped Teddy into a hug and cuddled close to him on the sofa. Ginny knew it was bad when Percy showed up with his face pale and his hands twitching.

"Don't worry about our brother, Ron," George spoke in soft tone. "He's made of tougher stuff than most."

Out of all of the Weasley siblings, Ron and George had always been the closest with Harry. The three of them had lived at Grimmauld Place together after the war while Ginny finished up her final year at Hogwarts. George had latched onto Ron and Harry after Fred died. The two of them gladly accepted him into their fold. Years later, the three of them were still thicker than thieves. Harry being just as close to George as he had always been to Ron. Ron and George, in return, treated Harry like a true brother and were always there when he needed them. George often joked that he liked Harry better than Ginny and how he would trade her in a heartbeat for him.

The kids fell asleep on the uncomfortable hospital sofas. People filtered in and out of the waiting room as their loved ones were tended to at a far quicker rate than Harry was. Ginny felt numb. She could not fall asleep, could not speak, could not even think. She felt like she merely existed for the sake of existing. The only thought that flittered through her mind was that no news was good news. It meant that Harry was fighting for his life. She clung to that idea like a lifeline.

"I'm looking for Harry Potter's next of kin," a voice called nearly three hours after Ginny and the kids had arrived at the hospital.

She maneuvered her way out from under her children's limbs. Her legs felt as though they were going to collapse under her weight. Ron and George were beside her in a heartbeat, their arms wrapped around her as though giving her the strength she desperately needed in that moment. The trio walked over to the Healer. The rest of the family remained fast asleep. A small part of Ginny was glad for that.

"Is he alive?" murmured Ginny as she leaned into George.

"For now," the Healer responded. "He's very unstable. We had to restart his heart several times already. We think we have repaired the damage from the curse he was hit with. We are inclined to believe that the curse was not contained and will start destroying his internal organs again albeit at a much slower rate. We haven't the faintest idea what curse was used. We have a specialist from Germany who will arrive first thing in the morning via an international Portkey to try to identify the curse and hopefully be able to counteract it. She is a top medical potioneer."

"Can we see him?" questioned Ron as Ginny let out a dry, choking sob.

"I can allow two back at a time. No children though at least not until the specialist can see him in the morning."

"You two go." George leaned down to give Ginny a kiss on her temple. "I'll let the family know as they wake."

Ginny and Ron marched through the corridors of the Janus Thickey Ward. Ron's arm stayed securely wrapped around Ginny's shoulders as he held her close to his chest. The only sound that could be heard in the eerily quiet ward was the clicking of their shoes on the polished floors. The corridors suffocated Ginny and felt as though they were closing in on her. She felt like she couldn't breath as her mind tried to mentally prepare itself for the worst-case scenario.

She didn't know how she would live without Harry. He was a constant in her life. He was always there to kiss her good morning, to roll his eyes at her eccentric behavior, to laugh at her poorly constructed jokes, to listen to her foul-mouthed rants about work, to make a complete arse out of himself when he attempted to give her a romantic birthday gift but failed because it was so spectacularly cheesy.

He didn't even argue with her when she wanted to buy four pygmy puffs so each kid would have one, to buy Teddy an owl so he'd have one for school to write them letters every day, and rescue a cat that they had found in the Muggle village near their house that had been hit by a car. He just chuckled at her antics and gave her a kiss on the corner of her mouth and told her he loved her and her ginormous heart. Their house was jam-packed with kids and animals that it wasn't even funny at that point. Part of her had been contemplating adopting a dog just to see if she could push him over the edge. Except, she thought he would have been most excited about a damn dog because he said he had always wanted one as a kid but his aunt had never allowed even a fish in her perfectly posh house.

Pushing the door open to the hospital room, Ginny gasped. It was hard to see where the sheets ended and where Harry's skin began. He was so pale that he blended into the eggshell sheets. His dark hair was a stark contrast to the rest of his body. He lay shirtless with thick, white bandages wrapped tightly around his chest and stomach. He was still like a statue with his eyes closed. He looked more like a corpse than anything else.

A shuddering breath escaped Ginny's lips as she pulled out of Ron's arms. While he stood frozen by the door, Ginny closed the space between her and the bed. Her fingers immediately clasped around his hand as she sank into a nearby chair. His palm felt cold and clammy against her skin. She absentmindedly rubbed her thumb along his knuckles, almost wishing the soothing motion would cause his eyes to flicker open.

Ginny didn't know how long she sat beside his bed as she watched his chest slowly rise up and down. It looked nearly unnatural just how sluggishly he breathed. There was a faint, steady beeping sound that filled the entire room. Years ago and with a different not so life-threatening injury, a Healer had explained it was a spell to keep track of his vitals. If his heart stopped, there would be a constant beep and Healers would rush in to attempt to save him. She had never once heard that constant beep. She had never even worried about it until that night. She waited anxiously to hear the dreadful sound as a sickening feeling filled her stomach.

At some point, her parents forced the Potter children out of the hospital and took them to the Burrow. The rest of the Weasleys went back home to their families after filtering in briefly to see how Harry was doing. At some point in the night, Ginny bent over and placed her head onto the bed. Her nose grazed against his bare bicep. One arm snaked underneath her head to act as a pillow and the other hand held tightly onto his hand. She couldn't let him go. She wanted him to feel her with him, to will him awake. With a heavy heart, she dozed in and out of a restless sleep all night.

I've been working on this story for close to a month now in my spare time. With the end of "Cheating Death" rapidly approaching, I thought it was the perfect time to at least get the first chapter up of my new chaptered story. Major big applause to Arnel who is probably the best editor I could have asked for. Please, be sure to leave a review and let me know what you think of the beginning of the story. I promise you, you will not be able to guess where I am going to go with this story. I'm beyond excited.