Because of You
Harry passed through the Gryffindor Common Room feeling more tired than he had ever thought possible. He had just defeated the darkest wizard since Grindelwald and he wasn't sure of what else to do. His two best friends had respected his desire to stay away from people and straighten out his thoughts of the night before. So many lives were lost. He thought of Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks Lupin and how their son Teddy, his godson, would never get to really know his parents, and it broke his heart.
'Another orphan of war, just like me,' he thought.
Harry's thoughts turned to Severus Snape and the man who he truly was. He felt guilty for hating the man but he could not get over how Snape had treated him for six years and the way Snape saved his life when it was necessary.
'His way of protecting me and preparing me,' Harry told himself.
Harry thought then of Colin and how he would never again get to hear the boy's, no, young man's, voice greet him again or see the flash of his camera. He hated to think about how Dennis was taking his death.
Harry finally found himself thinking of Fred. It hurt to think that a family that was always so happy and full of life would have to deal with the tragic loss of a brother and son. Harry could just barely imagine how Ron was feeling and, if he stretched enough, how George might feel. What felt worse was when he started to think about what Ginny was going through.
As if his thoughts had been a beacon, the portrait hole opened to reveal the young woman with fiery red hair and soft chocolate eyes that made his heart leap. She looked up and Harry saw that those beautiful brown eyes were red and puffy and her normally soft fair cheeks were tear-stained. His heart broke even more at this. He hated the idea of her crying and he felt that every reason that she had to cry was his fault. After a moment of staring Harry felt a tear roll down his cheek right before he turned and ran up the stairs to the top dorm. As he shut the door Harry heard someone running up the stairs behind him. He knew it was Ginny so he turned and waited. When the door opened she stepped through and closed it behind her. Ginny drew her wand and muttered a few charms before looking back at Harry.
"I'm sorry," he muttered before she had said a word.
"I thought you were gone," she said.
"I should be," Harry said softly.
"Why Harry? Why would you run from me," she asked in a strained voice.
"I thought that you would want me to leave," he answered.
Ginny walked over to him with both of her hands balled tightly into fists. She stopped and looked up at him for a second before pulling one hand back and punching him in the chest.
"I thought you had left me," she screeched as she hit him with the other hand.
"I thought you were gone forever, Harry. Do you know that I wanted to die when I saw Hagrid carrying you? I couldn't have gone on without you, do you know that? WELL," she continued to scream as she punched his chest.
Harry stood his ground letting her take out her rage and sorrow on him. He felt that he deserved it for breaking her heart twice like that and for costing her a brother and a friend. Each of her punches carried a little less energy than the one before it and soon she was sobbing against his chest. He put his arms around her and gently caressed her back while she cried.
"I'm sorry Ginny. I had to put an end to it. If you sit down, I'll tell you everything," he said.
Ginny nodded against his chest. He helped her sit on the edge of the bed that would have been his before sitting next to her and taking her hand in his.
"Before I start Gin I need you to promise that you'll let me tell you the story all the way through before you say anything," Harry said.
"I can't promise that Harry, but I'll do my best," she replied.
"I think I can deal with that," he said softly.
Harry started telling Ginny about everything that had happened since Bill and Fleur's wedding. He told her about the Prophesy and the Horcruxes as he went, knowing that her hearing about those would help her understand what he had been doing for the last ten months. He told her about being captured and his raid on the Ministry and his breaking into, and out of, Gringott's. When he got to the part where he had left the Room of Requirement he choked a bit before continuing to the part where he went to the forest. He paused there to let Ginny take what she's heard in before he went on.
"While I was walking into the forest I kept telling myself that I couldn't turn around to come back and talk to you. If I had, I'd have never been able to go on and do what I had to do. Ginny, I went into the forest to let him kill me hoping that Neville or you or someone would finish him off. While I was standing there waiting for the curse to hit me I could only think of one thing. That one thing, Ginny, was how much I love you and that I never got to tell you. You were my last thought just before the killing curse hit me," he said as his tears began to trickle down his cheeks.
Ginny just stared at him while her mind took in what he had just told her.
"You were thinking about me," she asked in a bit of disbelief.
"You were all I could think about," he answered.
He continued on from there, telling her about King's Cross and Dumbledore and the choice he'd been given. She stopped him there for a moment.
"You had a choice," she asked.
"I could have gone on to be with my parents and Sirius and Remus, or I could come back here. Believe me it would have been very easy to go on but I remembered something that I heard two years ago. I had to make the choice between what was right and what was easy. I knew going on would be easy but it would have left things here undone. Then I thought about you and I knew coming back was the right thing to do," he said.
"You came back for me," she asked shakily.
"I came back for you," he answered.
Ginny threw her arms around Harry, sobbing openly. Harry pulled her to him and gently stroked her hair and back while he whispered words that he hoped were comforting to her. He felt a lump in his throat again but fought to hold his tears in so that he could continue to comfort the young woman in his arms. He felt his heart breaking while he held her as the understanding of what she would have lost if he had decided to go on set in. She had lost a good close friend and a brother in the battle and he knew that she couldn't have been dealing well with that. Had he not returned, Harry was sure that Ginny would have gone completely mental and might have done something rather rash without a thought of whether she would live or die. It was this that told him what his true feelings for the ginger haired girl were. He had heard her screams of pain when Hagrid had carried him from the forest and he had seen her dueling Bellatrix Lestrange after she had thought him dead. The way she was fighting told him that her heart had been broken and her reaction to the killing curse that had missed her by centimeters told him that she felt as if she were missing part a piece of her soul. He realized that all of this was proof of her feelings for him and he understood now that his feelings were the same.
Ginny quieted after a while and hugged Harry tightly.
"Thanks," she said simply but with and air of contentment in her voice.
"It's the least that I could do for you after what I've done," he said.
"Don't you dare, Harry Potter," she growled suddenly.
"What? Say that I'm sorry that I didn't end this war soon enough? Before Colin died? And more to the point, before Fred Died? Ginny those deaths and so many others happened because I wasn't fast enough and I wasn't good enough and because I was too scared," he said, the pain obvious in his voice.
It was Ginny's turn to be the comforter and show Harry how much she cared for him.
"None of that is your fault Harry. You couldn't have done anything different and you know it," she said.
"I could have given myself up sooner, or I could have done more to keep all of you from fighting," he said sadly.
Ginny pulled Harry to her and hugged him tight.
"I know it hurts because you've lost friends and you think you could have done something to keep it from happening Harry. You've got to understand that there was nothing that you could have done. They knew the risks of fighting and they accepted them. They fought because they wanted to do what they thought was the right thing and they chose not to just do what was easy. Most of all, though, they fought because they knew that you would never give up because that's who you are and not because you are the 'Boy that Lived' or whatever the Profit was calling you that day. I fought for my future and for my world but I really didn't care as much about those things as I did for the most important reason that I fought. I fought for you, Harry, for us, and for our future, together. And all of those things were so important to me because I wanted to share them with you, not because we were together last year, because we are together now. I never gave up on my feelings for you and I never will. I love you Harry, so much more than I could ever say in words," Ginny explained.
Harry sat dumbstruck for a moment. Suddenly what had happened last night seemed so unimportant in comparison to what he had just heard.
"I love you too Ginny," he said to her.
Ginny leaned close to him and looked into his eyes. She saw that there was more than just a truth to his words. It appeared that she was his only reason to go on and as much as that meant to her, she had a feeling that there was something else that he was hiding. She was sure that whatever it was it had to do with his past but right now the past was unimportant. What was important was that he loved her and she was ecstatic. With that she kissed him, slowly and tenderly at first and then with a passion that seemed to flow through both of them. When they ended the kiss, Ginny looked back into Harry's eyes.
"Because of you, I'm happy again," she told him.
"Because of you, I'm alive," Harry replied lovingly.