DISCLAIMER: All this time I was wishing that I owned Harry Potter, all this time I was waiting for the call...but I don't. All credits go to J.K. Rowling, who's sandbox I am happy to play in, and to OneRepublic for their amazing music.
A/N: I heard this song, my mind immediately went to all the Harry/Ginny possibilities. Which is why I have decided that I really don't give a damn how annoying the songfics are getting, and wrote ANOTHER. Song is All This Time by OneRepublic. Ship is obviously Harry/Ginny. Harry's POV, set in Deathly Hallows, a bit of a reunion fic actually. ENJOY!
~Ari
Six on the second hand to new year's resolutions
There's just no question what this man should do
Take all the time lost, all the days that I cost
Take what I took and give it back to you
My eyes followed the second hand as it's journey through the numbers brought it nowhere it hadn't been before.
I couldn't seem to move, even though I'd been in the same spot for hours.
Six of them.
I knew what I needed to do: There was no question as to who I wanted to talk to most, but I couldn't move. All that time I'd wasted...those years I had followed Ron's lead and turned a blind eye to Ginny Weasley. And now: A year apart. I'd wouldn't be surprised if she rejected me.
I'd lost so much time.
Days, months, maybe even years.
All this time we were waiting for each other
All this time I was waiting for you
We got all these words, can't waste them on another
So I'm straight in a straight line running back to you
What I had wanted and needed had been right there in front of me. And she'd waited. I ran my tongue over my dry lips, swallowed painfully, but it did nothing to help my parched throat.
There were so many things I wanted to say, like how I'd thought about her every day, like how I had missed her so much it felt like a stomach ache.
Like how I loved her.
Like how the only reason I'd survived was so that I could come back to her.
I don't know what day it is, I had to check the paper
I don't know the city but it isn't home
You say I'm lucky to love something that loves me
But I don't as I could be wherever I roam
I closed my eyes and leaned back on the plush red couch in the Gryffindor common room, lost in the days of torture that had rammed into me, one after the other, for the past ten months.
I remembered one day clearer than any of the others, who's colors and actions blurred in a warped picture, vague happenings that didn't really matter any more.
It was three days after Ron had left.
I was out looking for food, roaming an unidentified city aimlessly.
As I exited the supermarket I'd just nicked food from (leaving a twenty pound note tucked under a penny jar on one of the registers when no one was looking), I noticed a local news paper. Realizing I had only a vague idea what month it was, I picked it up.
November 25th, 1997
I clutched the paper into my fist underneath my Invisibility Cloak.
I just wanted to go home.
Later that day, I sat next to Hermione outside the little tent deep in the woods, a stark contrast to the unknown city I'd wandered through earlier.
Her face was turned from me, and I couldn't tell until she spoke that she'd been crying.
"You're lucky, you know," she whispered.
I snorted. I'd never really considered myself lucky, unless you count my uncanny ability (or perhaps just stupid, fumbling bravery) to get myself out of tough spots.
"No, really."
"How so?" I inquired.
"You...you're free to love. You know...you know she loves you back."
Her voice was little more than a whisper.
"I don't know which of us has it worse," I told her honestly before getting up and brushing my fingers over the top of her head gently. I wondered if I could form the words to describe what I felt about Hermione.
Then I realized it was quite simple. Only two were needed, so I whispered them to her as I passed: "My sister."
For Ginny, it was harder. For Ginny there were three – three I didn't know how to say.
"I love you."
Hear me saying,
All this time we were waiting for each other
All this time I was waiting for you
Got all these words, can't waste them on another
So I'm straight in a straight line running back to you, yeah
Oh, running back to you
Oh, running back to you
Yeah
Oh, I would travel so far
I would travel so far
To get back where you are
I wondered how far we'd come. How many miles we'd traveled. How much time we had left. How many seconds had elapsed since we'd left.
I wondered how long it would take me to get back to her.
For once in my life, I had one clear goal, even if I was...scared...to focus on it.
So I counted.
One, two, three seconds...one hundred, two hundred...minutes...five, six, seven days...
All this time we were waiting for each other
All this time I was waiting for you
Got all this love, can't waste it on another
So I'm straight in a straight line running back to you
Jolted back to the present, I felt the couch depress with the weight of a second person. The familiar, intoxicating scent pressed in on me, so I didn't move, but I opened my eyes to feast on her: Now that I could, I wondered if I'd ever muster the courage to let her out of my sight.
After all those months, so many words had been bottled up, but I found that now I had nothing to say. Slowly, I let the the thing I'd never acknowledged fill the forefront of my mind.
I love her.
She leaned over me, curled her fingers into my hair, and I melted. She pressed he lips to mine, and I groaned.
"I swear to God I will never leave again," I hissed against her mouth before attacking her tongue with mine.
I felt her body shift and slide onto my lap, and I slipped my arms around her waist as she whispered, "I am so proud of you, Harry Potter. And I am absolutely furious as well."
I couldn't help laughing.
Straight in a straight line running back to you
Straight in a straight line running back to you
Straight in a straight line running back to you
A/N: So how was it? The minute I heard this song, I thought of what Harry must've been thinking about Ginny all through DH, and the "You say I'm lucky to love something that loves me" really struck a chord with something Hermione might be thinking, what with the whole Ron thing. In any case...I'm going to stop babbling and maybe stop procrastinating math homework. (I have no more excuses. Except maybe if a purple elephant decided to stampede through the library right...about...now!
~Ari