Author's note: In my second year of college, I had an insane English professor. No, really. He supposedly ran after a student's car with fat tire chains when the student tried to take his parking space that semester. lol Like I said, insane, but... he was nice. He was very much interested in the psychological trauma that soldiers experienced, and all kinds of other haunting memories or political messes. Yes, it was an awesome class. We even got to watch Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five (insane, I tell you) and Blade Runner, which I love.

BUT, and this author's note has a point, we also read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and it stuck with me. Even now, three years later, I still feel mildly sick whenever I remember the excerpt we had to read. For those of you who've read the whole thing: the medic dying? Was so not my cuppa. But on a whole it made me feel on a deeper level what kinds of things haunted soldiers. It made me realise that all those stories I read about how soldiers don't feel, can't feel, are not true. No way. Not after The Things They Carried. Something's gotta give. And sometimes you need help.

And so that's why I wrote this shortly after reading that story. The bunny just wouldn't stop nibbling and so I gave in. So enjoy, but it's not a happy fic.

Oh, and P.S.? I never finished it, but it does feel somewhat finite when you reach the end of what I've written. I'd just planned (like I always do) a novel-length. When will I learn that not everything has to become a novel...

The Other Side

Harry carried the same wand he'd been using since his first one broke in sixth year during his NEWT-level Defence Against the Dark Arts Christmas exams. It was secured against his chest in a well-worn leather strip holster. If need ever arose, he had easy reach to all of his weapons and poisons, most of which were hanging from or strapped to a thick Granian-hide belt with a good number of powder pouches for those moments when one was in serious danger of becoming a prisoner to the other side. Those were all standard possessions for soldiers and generals alike.

Harry himself was a general. In all honesty, though, he had absolutely no inkling how he'd come to become, to everyone's expectations, their hero, the one they came to when all else failed. Every single tactic, every single plan came to works in his best friends' heads; they were the ones who mobilised the troops and seemed to know where to go when some saving needed to be done.

Men humped their personal belongings as well. they did the humping all day, walking through thick forests and clearings and mountains, and by night they didn't sleep until early morning when everyone was too drained to think coherent thoughts. And then they packed their things again and humped through forests and clearings and mountains again. Harry wasn't sure but he thought he had seen the snow melt, but anyway he only remembered the sun beating down hard on him and his medic sweeping a cool potion over his burns. Because they often humped shirtless, otherwise the air was too stuffy and heat strokes were easy to come by this time of the year.

Other things were easy to come by. She always came in his great general's tent and found him likes just now, this instant, soaked through and through and lying tangled in his sheets. Sometimes he tasted salt on his cheeks, and it was far more than sweat. But every time, he tasted something bitter… anything, just anything to make it all better. The muggle stuff, the wizards' equivalents, and sometimes he preferred the wizards' stuff - the highs could be considered a hell of a lot more enjoyable if you counted all the fucking amazing trips one could have in one shot. The muggle stuff gave him a hard time dealing with the trips; when you came down it was twice as painful. Sometimes the pain was welcome, but more often than not he preferred the peace, the good world he encountered in the magical highs.

But soon it was all over.

"Harry!"

She crumbled to his bedside. Already there were tears in her eyes, she made no attempt to clear them. Taking his drenched face in her cool fingers, Ginny's face fell hard. He landed hard. She cried. He had no idea what was making her. His vision was all blurry.

"Oh, Harry, what are you doing? What are you doing?"

Some form of answer passed right through his lips and Harry did not recognise that man, but that didn't matter. Who was that anyway?

"This'll kill you," she said softly, though firmly, on his neck, next to his ears. He could hear, but Ginny was so far away, he tried to push away but she nudged closer.

"Let me help you," Ginny continued, and Harry was finally able to see the colour of her eyes. They were of anxiety, pain and tears. And oh, he ached for a grasp on reality, so he grasped on her, unable to form his query but acknowledging that she understood him better than any other medic he'd ever had. "Let me help, Harry. You can't go on living like this…"

She was crying, still, fat teardrops staining his war clothes, but they were already stained, weren't they; a little more staining, then, and he didn't care.

"Don't… don't…" he managed to tear out of his numbed and fogged mind. Reaching with pale but strong hands racked with tremors, Harry touched her hair and she broke down, incomprehensible in her laments. He didn't understand what was happening; why was she crying? "What… crying… about?"

Managing to control her sobs somewhat, Ginny balled her fists on Harry's drenched shirt and stared up at him with some sort of fire within. Was it even possible? "You have got to stop," she growled fiercely, tugging his shirt up and dragging her nails over his reddening skin. "Not for me, Harry. I've asked you far too many times. You think the war hurts?" And with far more strength than Harry had ever witnessed coming from her, his Ginny delivered a blow that created stars he'd never seen before.

She raised herself on her knees, right over him and he was scared, shit. "Think again," she continued, venom in her wavering voice. And yet she was sobbing still. "This war hurts everyone, Harry! You seem to think it only affects you. Bastard!" Lowering herself on him, Harry didn't mind the extra weight as she nuzzled the little hairs behind his ears.

She paused, considered him during the most painful moment of his life. Ginny stared down at him, saw exactly what he was. The next moment Ginny murmured what broke him entirely: "You're not the Boy Who Lived anymore… You're a man going out of his way to free a world." She nuzzled his neck again, rubbing his cheek tenderly with one of the soft little hands that did wonders to ill bodies. "This is what you want," Harry. You're a far greater man than you think you are, and I'm proud and scared for you. You're breaking yourself and your dream by doing this to your body and mind."

She pulled away, an inch away from his nose, and Harry had to cross his eyes to see her. He wanted to keep seeing her because he vaguely remembered his Ginny being a lot happier once upon a time when the world wasn't black and white. "Let me-"

Instinct was a natural thing that eluded many of those who studied its inner workings. But in a human it was bound to their soul and dictated one's actions if need arose. There was no other more astute definition to the word. Harry fell victim to instinct as he pressed his lips against Ginny's, realising that he needed to kiss her like he needed air to breathe, and as he threaded his fingers through her unshaven hair, he really didn't care that she didn't smell of her rosebud and gingerbread soap like she used to. It was all the same, really. She was Ginny, and the woman he touched to remind himself who he was.

Harry liked to have a map with him. There were several marks on it. Blood from his fallen fellows. How it got onto there, Harry didn't know. Quill marks, too, where he'd made notes to remind himself that he'd been to Bedford, Nottingham, Guildford, Maidstone, Blackpool. Marks, marks, marks. He found them on her skin, too, the skin that was visible to anyone, on her arms and her cheeks. There were marks of dirt and wet spots and bruises. There was never any time to heal them. She always moved forward, healing others besides herself. That was how Ginny worked, he reminded himself as he kissed the sore spots away, willing them away from her tired skin.

There were other marks on her skin. Burns, slashes, bites, gashes. This skin he knew like none other. Ginny was like a battle from the past and the present. Reminded him where he stood. He saw her skin now and shivered, clouds breaking to wash his sight with all he was to do.

He had to lead them all, lead them the only way he remembered he'd ever led them. To their deaths, to their demise, to a battle that he was never sure they'd ever come out of alive at all. With Ginny he needn't lead. He needn't try to glue a facade onto his face. She was hard and soft at once, yielding, giving, wanting, needing, offering. She did all this, without complaining. And he was thankful for her. For, without her, Harry thought his life would have gone astray long ago.