Ron had always known that Harry could die in the war. But he survived that, only to die a year later on an Auror mission to capture escaped death eaters.

It wasn't so much a shock as deeply unfair. For a while everything hurt – from Quidditch to Chess to chocolate frogs to Potions – everything reminded him of Harry. He spent so long stealing himself against all the things he had to look at every day, and trying to keep Hermione with him, if nothing else, that he forgot all about Ginny.

And Ginny, poor sweet, innocent little Ginny was pregnant. What with Harry being dead she'd forgotten all about the Morning After Potion. His Mum had been ready to kill her, and even their Dad was that terrifying thing: 'disappointed', and before anyone knew it, Ginny was living with the twins. It wasn't until Harriet Potter, a dark haired little human, came into the world that Molly forgave her.

Naturally Ron and Hermione were the Godparents. Ginny was pale and big-eyed and far, far to young to be someone's mother. But Ron let that go. She had Fred and George looking after her, even supporting her financially, and he and Hermione had to learn to be only two. They'd been 'two', they were a couple, but they'd been two in three.

Without Harry…Hermione cried a lot, and Ron…there was a part of him missing. Putting Harry in the past was almost impossible to do, because Ron could all but have a conversation with him in his head. Two halves of an apple, they'd always simply understood one another. Now he was gone.

Hermione even broke up with him. Went off to study something complicated to do with magical enslavement, and left him on his own. Even after ten years it was hard for Ron to forgive that. When she finally came back he was so aggrieved, so determined to be wounded, that she nearly had to launch a flock of birds at him again.

In all the time that he and Hermione were breaking up and putting themselves back together, growing closer, picking careers and sorting things out, Harriet Potter was getting big. She was an odd, skinny thing, with a mop of dark and round glasses. Ginny loved her, as fiercely as could be imagined, and it never struck Ron that she wasn't happy.

Until one day, two months after Harriet went to Hogwarts, when he found her curled up with Dean Thomas. Ron had been planning to tell her that Hermione was pregnant, that they wanted Ginny to be the Godmother, but the words died in his throat. He said terrible things that day, thinking he could never forgive her for betraying Harry. It didn't matter that Harry was nearly twelve years dead – at that moment it felt as though he could walk through the door at any time.

Ginny didn't speak to him for nearly a year. It was left to Hermione to tell him that her relationship, or whatever, with Dean was over. Ron would have been the first to congratulate Ginny, but when he saw how she looked, if anything, more miserable – as bad as the day they buried Harry.

She managed to pull herself together a bit when Harriet came home, and Ron was around more then – however angry he might be with Ginny, he would never miss out on seeing Harry's child. But Harriet was at that age when she was beginning to ask questions, and one day she told Ron that she hated her father sometimes. Hated that he'd gone off with him and Hermione, and left Ginny all alone. She declared herself to be Ginny's daughter alone, and wondered if she could change her name to Weasley. She'd never looked more like Harry.

Somehow, Ginny managed to give her better ideas, and not too long afterwards, she started a relationship with Lee Jordan. No one expected it to last, and even on the day of their wedding Ron was sure something would happen to prevent it. Of course nothing did, and it wasn't until Hermione begged him to be happy for her, that Ron realized he'd tricked everyone, Ginny, Harriet, Hermione and even himself, into believing that he cared more about dead Harry than alive Ginny.

The worst part was, he was right to be doubtful. Lee and Ginny had two children and then divorced after fifteen years. Ginny seemed to accept this happily enough, and she stayed a housewife, growing miraculous plants in her back garden once all the children were grown. But Ron knew – it was never what she wanted, and it wasn't what Harry would have wanted for her.

None of them got what they wanted.