b 48. Reunion b
"I didn't know you were coming back," Ginny muttered, looking down at her feet. Harry had come not five minutes ago, to her room, through the window. She hadn't wanted to see him. Dean had said he was dead. She was getting married in a week.
"I promised," Harry said, looking at her, she could tell without looking up from her detailed examination of her blue fuzzy slippers.
i "I'm not leaving you," Harry had said, at her oldest brother's wedding, tipping her chin up with one long finger. "I'm just leaving, Gin."
"I'll be here, you won't be. You are the one who's going somewhere else, so you're leaving me," she'd mumbled, rebellious. She had tried to be strong, a soldier's wife like in her books, but that just wasn't Ginny's lot in life. She could be a soldier, she could be a half-silly sixteen-year-old girl – she could be nothing in between, and he was making her into some princess stuck in a tower, waiting for him to come home. She could get out of the damned tower all on her own, if she wanted too. "I want to come with you, Harry. I can help – I know I can."
"Well, we'll never find out," he'd said, his face hardening. "You're better off here, I'm better off not having to worry about you, you're doing your bit by staying."
"This is the last time I'll ever see you,"she mumbled, she was a little afraid of that. If he died, she wanted to be beside him. She didn't want to die too, but she wanted to see it. To know that for once, in that last minute, he'd known someone cared. Known it for sure.
"It isn't," he murmured, softer now, pulling her face up. "I promise." /i
"Harry, that was three years ago,' she says again, looking at the carpet now, seeing the tips of his black sneakers. "Things change, Harry. Did you come back because you knew I was getting married?"
"I didn't know women who were already engaged could get married without, you know, permission from the guy they said yes to. Or they could at least return his ring."
"You never asked, Harry, you just expected that I'd marry you," Ginny snapped, sliding the ring off her right hand even as she spoke.
i The tiny box was left on her pillow, and she swore she still felt the ghost of lips against her forehead, his hand on hers by her waist. She slid her hand up to the box, narrowly missing a mess of red hair.
The ring was pretty, a tiny little diamond that she'd seen before, when they'd been at Hogwarts for the wedding. It had been his mother's, Professor McGonagall had found it when she was going through Dumbledore's things. He had smiled and put it in his pocket; half-promising she'd have it someday.
The note only read 'Say yes'. /i
"I thought you, um, I thought you –" Harry stuttered, stumbled over his words in that way she used to think was adorable. Now she thought of the way words flowed out of Dean's lips – how much he loved her, how beautiful she was. This fumbling little – he was such a child. Had always, she realized, been such a child. So was she, then, though.
"Loved you?" She asked, feeling a bit cold, suddenly. She felt like one of those women she'd always hated, the ones who never make themselves accessible. Who hide away because they're afraid the men will think them too forward – the kind of woman who is so out of touch with her sexuality that she might as well give it all up and buy a few cats and some argyle sweaters rather than waste away her twenties waiting for a man to come along. Ginny hated those women. Ginny always made the first move – with Harry, with Michael and with Dean. Those women would have kicked Harry out of their rooms and those women would have said they had never loved him.
Ginny was not one of those women.
"I did, Harry," she said, finally looking him in the eye. She wasn't a child anymore. She was Ginny Weasley, she had killed Death Eaters on her own, she had healed broken men back to health – she was not going to back down just because she was in her nightgown and he'd been her first love. "But you left, and you didn't contact anyone for three years. You didn't even try, Harry."
i "He's not coming back, sweetheart," Dean told her, a hand on her shoulder. "He said to tell you he was sorry before he went in. Then he sent us all home and told us he'd follow. We didn't see him or Ron again for three weeks, so we came back."
"I don't believe you," Ginny had snapped, standing up and shrugging his hand off. "Harry promised me he was coming back. What about Hermione? We know she got out alive and, and once she can tell us what happened –"
"It's not going to happen, darling," Dean said, "even if she does wake up, and no one's saying that's going to happen, it's unlikely she'll be in any state to tell us. He's dead, Ginny."
"He's not," she sobbed, not sure if she was talking about her brother or Harry. /i
"I, Ginny, Gin, I couldn't, I –" he stuttered again, then took a deep breath, and regained whatever footing he could. "I couldn't, and I didn't want to, and if you'd let me just –"
"You shouldn't be here," she said, slowly and surely. If he could explain, if there was some nice logical explanation, she wasn't sure she'd be able to marry Dean the next Saturday . Wasn't sure she'd be able to not go back to Harry.
"I just wanted to apologize," he said, finally, "I'll go."
"Thank you," she said, then, "you should come in the morning though, Mum will be happy to see you. And I'm getting married next Saturday, you should come."
"I'll see you in the morning," Harry said, smiling a little. "And, Ginny?"
"I don't want to hear it, Harry."
"As long as you know."
i She'd meant yes, that first time, and when she knew Dean was going to propose, she slid the ring off. Put it on her right hand and thought, quietly and to herself, not to be shared: 'If you'd really loved me, you should have come back.'
Ginny was such a stupid a stupid child then. /i