Fate is never too generous even to its favorites. Rarely do the gods grant a mortal more than one immortal deed.
~Stefan Sweig

Her photo had been splashed all over the papers. He saw her now, smiling up from the pages as the flashbulbs captured her flawless image, immortalising her in the minds of the public.

It was sad that this was all he saw of her now.

The glittering images were so different from the woman he had known. Now she was all grown up. She wasn't his girl anymore, and he supposed he deserved it.

He was a fool. Where he could have gone after her heart after the battle, he hid away, shrinking from the press, his friends, but most of all her. She hadn't known why, and now it was ten years later and she had moved on.

Or at least she appeared to have.

Gripping the Daily Prophet tighter, Harry Potter tore his eyes away from her face, focusing on the bacon that he was meant to be frying.

One look told him that he had successfully made charcoal.

Turning off the stove, he tossed the remnants of what should have been a full English into the bin, before using his wand to get rid of the smoke.

Without meaning to, his eyes wandered back to the article. Ginny was appearing in a new film... Something about love or whatever new genre the public demanded now, Harry had lost track of current tastes. Ever since the Ministry of Magic and the British Government had formed an alliance, the muggle population had been fascinated by the idea of magic, and the wizarding population had been fascinated by the idea of film. The market had opened up, stars were waiting to be made, and the brightest of these was Ginny Weasley.

It had happened in her final year. Whilst he was drowning his sorrows in whatever alcoholic beverage was close at hand, she had been spotted by a talent scout who was going around the magical schools. Blaise Zabini was producer, and when it became public knowledge that he and Ginny were involved, her name became known all around the wizarding world.

However, she hid from it. She refused to disclose anything to give her a cheap shot at fame, and this endeared her to her public. Instead of calling her a whore, they said she was modest. A nice young girl who had risen from an impoverished background. When it had became known that Blaise was cheating with Pansy Parkinson, the public were angry, raising her star up higher than she ever thought possible.

Harry just wished the public had been that nice to him. Instead they had devoured him. Called him a recluse, a shadow of the man who had defeated Voldemort. But everyone changed after the war, some for good, and some for worse.

And now, a decade later, Ginny was a pillar of the wizarding world. She showed muggles that magic wasn't something to be frightened of. She was much more than an actress. She was an ambassador.

And after all this time he still loved her.

He had done what everyone had expected of him. He was swiftly climbing the ladder in the Ministry, and he was tipped to be the next head of the Auror office. It was just rumours, however, and he paid them no heed.

Ron was his partner. The red head having married his childhood sweetheart Hermione Granger, who was forever trying to get Harry to go out, escape from his work for a while.

Then again you couldn't be the best without a few sacrifices.

Once he had pulled his head out of the gutter, he had gotten serious. He wanted to learn, he wanted to defend the wizarding world, and most of all he wanted Ginny. However, he had been too late for the latter. Ten years was a long time, and it wasn't fair to appear back in her life again.

Ron had often tried to get them to meet each other, but they avoided each other like the plague. Not because they had parted on bad terms, but because they were afraid. They were afraid of the past. What would happen if they got together again? Would it work? Ginny had already made herself vulnerable to him before, and he had betrayed that trust. Instead he had put his faith in Firewhiskey, hoping that at the bottom of one of the bottles he would find the answer.

The question was one he knew well. In his dark hours - the times after being on a tough case - he mulled over it, tossing it about in his mind and getting no more answers than he did when it was conceived.

Why was he still alive?

No one knew the answer. Even the greatest Oracles of the time were stumped. However, he had long since stopped caring about the answer, and as he looked at his ruined breakfast, he longed for a moment to be the carefree Harry he had been in his Hogwarts days. But moments pass, and soon he reverted back to Auror Potter, stepping through the floo to get to work.

All the while the paper lay on the table, Ginny smiling and waving to the ceiling seemingly forgotten, but Harry never forgot her, and she lingered in the back of his mind all day.

A/N: A year or so ago I published this under the title 'Taking A Leap', but at that time my life was too hectic to continue, and to be honst I was not happy with the final product. This is my attempt to resurrect it after finding a few chapters on my laptop. Please let me know what you think and if I should continue. :)

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter.