Disclaimer: Don't be stupid, children. Use those brains and you get to understand that I not JKR in disguise, nor am seeking to make money off of this fic (though I could use it). Bah and large noses a la Pinocchio upon those who think otherwise.
"Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous."
-George Eliot
Prophecy
by marzoog
Perhaps this is what you would call destiny. This surety of happiness running in the veins informing him that this is rightperfectimmaculate whenever he is with her. That every moment of breathing the same air tells the same story, whispering softy to him: this is love.
Sometimes he lets his mind take a step back and survey the situation: every day, every hour, every minute, every moment I spend with her puts her more at risk. I can't condemn her to death by association. It would kill me, too. But then she'll look up at him with a smile rounding her cheeks and lighting her eyes up the way they do for no one else, and the biting, tearing words die on his tongue.
He has to remind himself daily that he is under the curse of prophecy, and that no one should have to share the weight of fate's displeasure. Words have a power all their own, and he knows he does not want to risk incurring their brutality.
He has seen what they can do to men: addled brains, slugs regurgitated, a life's worth of memory gone from a head in a second of incantation. He hates their hierarchy, wants to smash to pieces the cages they've put around his happiness.
Yet, can he risk it? Risk realizing that every second one "Avada Kedvra!" could take her away? What can his happiness weigh against her life? Against the power words have put over him?
Ginny, he thinks, you are more important than words.
&O&O&O
(He thinks too much.)
"Stop thinking."
(At least about the things that make your forehead look like that.)
"'Fraid I can't."
(A small, sweet smile walks onto the corners of his mouth.)
"'Fraid you're not trying hard enough."
(pleasepleaseplease, Harry. Just be happy. Just try.)
"Well, do you think you could do better?"
(Ha! We'll see about that, Harry Potter.)
"Much."
(If you only knew the beauty of living without fear, Harry. If only you had been granted that gift. But it was taken from you, right with your parents.)
"Prove it."
Leaning down, swooping in with her mouth, she does.
(Let me help you forget. Just let me try. forgetforgetforget.)
Much better.
&O&O&O
Once upon a time he came into a room on such a burst of joy that he forgot all rest of Gryffindor Tower, except her. Now she longs to make him forget himself. Make him forget that he is "The Chosen One" who is chosen to not give himself the ordinary sorts of happy moments humans live on.
Can't you just accept your infallibility, Harry? You don't have to give up every blessed second of your life to this struggle. Can't you take something for yourself? Let yourself be an ordinary Harry for one moment, not The Boy Who Lived? Will it kill you to allow yourself to have joy?
She is angry with him, yet she knows she loves him all the more for his uprightness, and strength. She curses his tearing of her essence. She has been torn into two parts: her selfishness telling her that he should not think her unwilling to give her life for him (as she would), and her objectivity admiring his chivalrous nature.
Harry, O Harry, everyone around you expects you to be a paragon, but I just want you to be human. I just want you to be the man I love, who is in you somewhere.
I just want to find a way to live happily ever after.
&O&O&O
He sees a blue sky with no Dark Marks, and so knows that this must be a dream. He sits up, and finds himself in the Burrow's garden. Green beauty seizes him, and all around life seems golden as a sun.
She is there. It makes the dream all the brighter, shining with her radiance.
"Harry…" she whispers, stepping towards his dream-self, "Don't you love me more than your own fears?"
"Ginny, I love you too much to see you in danger."
"But you don't love me enough to put me above your own piece of mind."
"Ginny, please. Try to understand."
"I do understand. Understanding is different than accepting."
"Accept my decision then. Please."
"No, Harry Potter, not when it's the wrong one."
"Please, Ginny. Please. Understand. Accept."
Don't let Voldemort ruin this too, he silently begs. Don't let him spoil my only source for normality. (But she doesn't listen.)
"You are going to have to choose: letting me go and fighting Voldemort your own way or drawing me closer and risking my life. I can only hope it's the latter."
She starts to fade away like a train going down the tracks, and then she is gone.
He wakes up, bolting upright, sweating profusely, and wanting to cry.
If only, he thinks, I didn't have to choose.
&O&O&O
She has read once somewhere that love is not love which alters when its alteration finds. That, she can say confidently, is a lie. Nothing can stay the same, not even love.
Sometimes she sees flickers of a happy future: Harry's naked face in the morning light, the weight of laughter upon her lips, the solidity of a child in her arms, sunlight in the garden, the clasp of his hand, a kiss while fluttering mid-air upon a broomstick.
Hope is a huge weight in her upper chest that must be gotten off somehow. So, she sometimes gets grass stains upon the knees of her pants praying to God, to the Moon, to Aphrodite, to Fate. (She doesn't know which.)
But hopes, whoever they are, they can answer her prayers.
&O&O&O
Perhaps this pain in his stomach is part of his dooming prophecy as well, he thinks. Perhaps, somewhere, sometime, someone decried that he would love her. Perhaps it was written in some unreadable language in the stars. Perhaps this love, with all its pain and pungent sweetness, is unavoidable. Perhaps this is what you would call kismet.
Perhaps this is what you would call fate. Perhaps this is what you would call destiny.
A/N: A thousand Chocolate Frogs is deserved by anyone who managed to make it through this muddle with energy to review intact. Thank you for reading, constructive criticism would be most appreciated. Be sure to have a nice day! :)
marzoog