In this universe, Ginny and Harry never dated.
Eternity In An Instant
"I want to live before I die. It's the only thing that makes sense."
&
There are some secrets / I will take to my grave. / But I don't want loving you / to be one of them. / (this, at least, is up to me)
The walk back down what had once been Dumbledore's office – which was what it always would be for Harry, it seemed – was quiet.
Harry no longer felt the urgency he had earlier, this feeling of dread, like an immense secret he had only guessed at the edges of was about to be finally revealed to him.
There was no mystery anymore. Harry knew what he had to do. Voldemort had called a cease-fire, asked for Harry's life in exchange for everyone else's, and Harry would give it to him.
Voldemort would unknowingly seal his own doom, and it would be the perfect revenge for all the harm and pain that monster had caused.
Harry's only regret was that he wouldn't get to see it happen.
Actually, no, that wasn't true.
Merlin, Harry had so many regrets, things he couldn't voice for fear of it stopping him in his resolute walk to his death.
(and oh, how he yearned for someone, anyone to stop him)
The biggest regret of them all, he thought, would be that he'd never get to tell Luna he loved her. Or maybe it was for the best. After all, he would be dead soon, wouldn't he? One more life sacrificed for this elusive 'Greater Good' he heard so much about.
But maybe, maybe he would get another chance.
One last chance to make things right before he took his monster to the grave with him, entrusting this world he loved so much to the people he trusted above them all.
He would like that, he thought.
.x.
It was Luna who found him, in the end. She seemed to come out of nowhere. One moment the corridor was empty, the next Luna was standing in it like some kind of holy apparition, her blonde hair casting something like a halo of light around her face.
She took his hands in hers and pressed something cold in them.
"We need to hurry. We don't have the time," Luna said, her prominent eyes oddly intent.
"The time for what?" Harry asked, bewildered.
Luna just smiled, a sad little thing, and lifted their joined hands to chest level.
"To save you, of course," she replied.
She then kissed him, a quick peck on the lips, before vanishing in his arms like smoke.
His lips tingled, and there was something metallic and cold in his hands.
Somehow, Luna had him slipped a Time Turner.
He didn't understand how it could still be here when she wasn't, but he knew where to get his answers.
His death could wait a little longer – if Luna thought that she could save him somehow, was sure of it enough to send him a message through time like this, then surely it was worth hearing her out.
He didn't even have to look for her though – just like her (future?) other self had done moments ago, she found him.
What he sight he must have made, standing alone in the middle of a half-ruined deserted corridor, a silver chain holding a tiny hourglass dangling from his fingertips.
"Oh," Luna said when she saw him. Or maybe it was the Time Turner she recognized.
She stepped toward him as if in a daze, her fingers ghosting along the chain until the came to rest upon the Time Turner itself.
"This is mine," she stated in a quiet, wondering voice. She didn't sound upset, only curious, but then again when had he ever heard her sound upset?
"Well, you did just give it to me," Harry admitted. "You just…" He shrugged, at a loss of word to explain what had just happened.
To his surprise, Luna merely smiled.
"I thought I might," she said, before fishing out an identical Time Turner from beneath her collar. "This is special to me, you know," she explained, her tone fond. "My mother made it."
"You should keep it then," was Harry's jerk-like reflex. He knew from experience how precious the things that had belonged to one's parents were.
"Don't be ridiculous, Harry," Luna replied, rolling her eyes, in a tone that let him know that she was thinking the Nargles were clouding his brain. "I gave it to you, which means you're supposed to have it."
It sounded so simple when she said it.
"But if I have it now, then how can you have it too?"
"The mysteries of time, I suppose," Luna said with a shrug. "Besides, this is hardly a normal Time Turner," she continued in the tone of someone about to make a confession.
"How so?" Harry frowned.
"My mother made it," Luna explained, her fingers caressing the silver chain hanging from her neck, her tone wistful. "She wanted to find a way to see the future, not simply the past. Divination's not always very reliable, you see."
Oh, Harry did see. He felt himself shiver at her words, a cold sense of foreboding running down his spine.
"And did it work?" He finally found the courage to ask, swallowing hard.
Faster than he would have expected, Luna moved, hooking the chain from the Time Turned he had been given around both their neck. "Let's find out."
And then, with a smile, she let it spin.
.x.
The world dissolved in sounds and colors. Somewhere bells chimed – images kept flashing in front of his eyes, like a movie stuck in fast forward (Dudley had broken the TV like this once).
Most of those images flashed by too quickly to grasp, but some stuck with him for some reason.
A large clock, which he recognized as the one keeping time here at Hogwarts, spun on and on, showing no sign of stopping.
The corridor they were in changed, going from mostly ruins back to the solid stone Harry was used to – but signs of repair could still be seen.
And then they weren't in that corridor anymore. Instead, they stood in a homely house Harry didn't recognize.
There were two figures there: a man and a woman. The man wasn't much taller than Harry, and sported black hair starting to grey, but it was the woman who shocked him the most.
She was facing him, and though she was obviously blind to their presence, there was no mistaking her.
It was Luna – an older Luna, but still the girl by his side.
"What's this?" Harry asked, eyes riveted to the scene unveiling in front of them. He felt like a voyeur, spying on these people's lives when they had no way of knowing anyone was there, but he still couldn't make his eyes turn away.
"The future," Luna merely stated, but she too looked interested by what was happening.
Future-Luna put her hand on the man's shoulder and hugged him from behind, and when the man turned his face Harry wasn't surprised to see that he wore his face.
His heart beat faster, fluttering in his chest with something that felt an awful lot like hope. Beside him, Luna merely smiled, unashamed.
It was only when their future selves started kissing that Harry managed to tear his eyes away.
"How is this possible?" Harry asked, his voice tight. "How am I…"
Not dead, he meant to say, but the words caught in his throat.
"Well, let's find out, shall we?"
And then, with a soft look on her face, Luna spun back time.
.x.
And somehow, they came back right where they had started.
He took Luna's hand in his and pressed it tightly against his heart.
"I just want you to know that-" he swallowed back the words, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. Why was it that even now, facing what might be his last moments, he still couldn't say it?
"I know, Harry. I know," Luna whispered back, her eyes infinitely wise. "I love you too. It's going to be alright, you'll see."
And just like that, the words came rushing out of his mouth, as if a great dam had suddenly been broken.
"I love you, Luna Lovegood," he replied fervently. "I don't know where I would be without you, but I do know that my life would be far more boring without you in it. I just wanted – I had to say it at least once, so you know it's true."
In another life, this would have been the moment he asked her to marry him. Harry even had the perfect ring picked out. He couldn't though – couldn't ask her that when he might make her a widow in the next instants.
They kissed - a fragile thing that could never measure up to the true depth of their feelings – and Harry steeled himself to walk away.
He would face his death proudly, like his parents had before him, and hopefully he would even get to come back, to live in this golden future they had just witnessed.