The Battle of Hogwarts is scarcely done, and Voldemort is vanquished once and for all. The many celebrations are tainted by the loss of loved ones. After a day of confusion—celebrating through tears and crying through joy—I need to get away from the crowded grief that is the Great Hall. Without conscious thought, I rush towards the Quidditch Pitch; it was always one of the best places to be alone and think. It's not there anymore, but I find myself sitting where it used to be. There are a lot of things about Hogwarts that used to be. That aren't there anymore.

I've cried too much to cry again, so I sit in silence on the decimated Pitch, looking at the beautifully silent stars. To be like them, removed from the pain of the battle, the pain of loss—

I can't think like that. Especially when there's someone else standing here. Someone else is in my safe haven, oblivious to me.

But then Harry says my name. "Ginny…"

He sounds so broken. "I'm right here," I call from across the Pitch.

He walks over to join me. "I know, Ginny. I know where everyone is. And I have to keep checking that Tom Riddle doesn't appear near anyone, even though we all saw him die…Ginny, it's too much. He didn't die the last time. What if he didn't die this time?" He sits down next to me, hopelessly.

How can he doubt himself like this? "Harry," I say firmly. "You Know Who is—"

"Say his name!" Harry interrupts. "If he's no longer a danger, if you're not just as afraid of him as you were before, say his name."

I take a deep breath. "Voldemort...he's dead, Harry. He died in front of us all."

"What if I missed a Horcrux?" he asks in a voice so small he sounds like an insecure child. "What if he's coming back?"

"V...Voldemort isn't coming back, Harry," I reassure him. "Tell me, how's your scar?"

He looks surprised at my change of topic. "My scar? It's...it's fine. Why?"

"If he wasn't dead, he'd be furious you defeated him. Didn't Ron say that your scar is linked to his emotions?"

"Yes," he says, comprehension slowly dawning on his face. "If it doesn't hurt after he was defeated, he must not be able to feel anger anymore, and that was so much a part of him that he must be dead?" I'm sure he doesn't mean for it to be a question, but he needs my approval of this theory. He's asking for it but doesn't even know that.

He took it much deeper than I intended to, but I agree with him anyway. "Don't you see, Harry?" I ask. "Voldemort is gone, forever. You can do what you want, without worrying about him."

"I wanted to be an auror," he says dejectedly, pulling up and throwing handfuls of the scorched grass. He won't look at me. "Except I haven't finished school, and they won't accept someone who's only finished six years of classes. Not even someone who's survived Voldemort throwing the killing curse at him four times."

"Four?" I squeak. How many times exactly has he faced Voldemort?

He seems relieved to talk. "When I was a baby and he killed my parents; in fourth year when he came back in the graveyard; earlier tonight when he brought me back here, supposedly dead; and when his own killing curse finally ended him in the Great Hall," he says, ticking them off on his fingers.

"Come back to school." Can he tell how much I want him to agree to that? To come back to school with me? "You can graduate a year late and be an auror."

"I'm not like the other students," he says. "I can't be like them. They're happy the war is over, but I'll always be haunted by it. It's my fault all those people died! If I hadn't come back to Hogwarts, he wouldn't have followed me here, and there would have been no battle."

"You had to come to Hogwarts," I remind him. "You needed Ravenclaw's diadem to defeat him."

"I needed to find the diadem so I could destroy it," he explains in his own backward logic.

"You wouldn't have found it anywhere else, Harry. You had to come to Hogwarts. You had to face him, or he'd still be alive. That would be a thousand times worse than any battle." He doesn't say anything, so I continue. "Come back to Hogwarts. Let everyone see that you're not letting the memory of...of Tom Riddle get in the way of living your life. It's what they need, Harry, and you're the only one who can give it to them."

He nods slowly, considering. "Ginny, if I won't let Voldemort get in the way of my life, but I did before, is it too late to change that?"

"What do you mean?"

"There were people I hurt, to keep them safe. Will they understand?"

He hurt me to keep me safe, nearly a year ago. "I don't think it's possible to understand what you're going through, Harry, or what you had to do to protect us all."

"Oh," he looks more hurt than he has all night. I didn't mean to do that to him, after everything else he's had to endure.

"I'm not done," I protest. "I think it is possible that they'll forgive you for the pain and move forward, if you ask them to." If they care about him even half as much as I do, they've already forgiven him.

Again, a slow nod, full of thought. "So if there was someone I distanced myself from, to keep her safe…"

Could he mean me? Or is there some other girl I don't know about? The thought makes me cringe. I can't really respond to that, so I just wait for him to continue.

"Could I earn her trust back, do you think?"

"Maybe," I answer ambiguously. If it's not me—and it can't be, he never lost my trust—I don't want to encourage him. Yet I can't bear not to.

"I hate this," he finally whispers. "All this uncertainty." He still won't look at me, only at the burnt patches of grass on his other side.

"Then do something about it," I challenge him, just as quietly. "Make a decision, and that's one less thing to be uncertain about."

"I want to finish school, I just don't know if I can handle being back here."

"Harry, listen to me," I say, almost desperately. "You can and you will. I'll always be right there to help if you need me."

"Always?" he questions, finally turning his face toward me. Of everything I said, that's what he chooses to latch on to.

"If that's what you want, yes."

"Ginny, I love you," he says. "I love you so much, and I've hated being away from you all this time. Of course I'll always want you there."

Now I'm crying, and I can't talk.

"Ginny, I'm sorry. If you like someone else I'll leave you alone." How can he think that?

I shake my head violently.

"Then why are you crying? Talk to me, honey, I need to know what's wrong."

It takes me a while to calm down enough to voice my thoughts, but I finally manage. "I missed you too, Harry."

He doesn't quite know how to react, but he cautiously puts his arms around me and pulls me close. I don't know how long we sit like that, but I never want to move.

"Ginny?" he finally asks.

"Yeah?"

"Can I come Hogwarts with you next year?"

"Yes," I mumble into his shirt.

We lapse into a comfortable silence. Eventually he takes my hand and stands up. "We really ought to get back, Ginny."

I give him my other hand and he tugs me gently to my feet, then wraps his arms around me. "Let's go see everyone," I agree reluctantly.

He smiles weakly. "Before Ron murders me for spending the night alone with his little sister?"

I smile back at him, my first since the battle. "Exactly."

As we trudge back to the castle, he never once lets go of my hand.

This was written as a contest entry for ginny . jal . harry (minus the spaces—FF thinks her name is a web address, apparently).

It's currently a oneshot, and will stay that way at least until I've finished some of my other projects.