Sometimes it is the last day on earth every day. Sometimes you die a little every time you take a breath. Sometimes you are crying in a room full of people and no one looks at you. This is how you know your heart is broken.
I think.
I don't know if my heart could break any more. Honestly. When they told me she was missing, it was the end of my life. What I'm living now, it's a half-life, it's the untold story. It's funny, when you think about it this way, when they tell my story, I'll go home and marry Ginny in the end. I'm the hero. I think, in my story, the way you'll hear it years from now, Ron will live too.
I think, the way you'll hear it, we will all be safe. I hate to be so depressing; I hate to be anything anymore, though. I wish I couldn't feel this, right now. I wish this weren't so real. I wish this were just a story, happening to anyone but me.
Am I horrible for that?
For wanting Ginny to still be alive? For doing anything to save the only woman I can ever love? Am I that horrible? Is that wrong? Can you honestly tell me that being willing to kill for her happiness is wrong? For my sons' happiness?
I came home the summer after Ginny's sixth year. Hogwarts was closing, at last. Lord Voldemort was dead, but his armies were still fighting. She had just lost her brother, and I had just lost everything I'd ever known. We were desperate, you have to understand. We were in love and we were desperate. Ten months later, we had two sons. I never met them. I don't know what they look like, only their names, and that they were safe.
It was never enough.
I was eighteen; I was a father already, and not a good one. It was the worst time of my life. We were losing the war. Hermione was beyond hope. The Weasleys were dropping off, one by one. First Ron, Fred, Percy, Charlie. It had to end. I sent them away, Molly, Arthur, Bill, Fleur, George. It was the least I could do. I told her to leave, take our sons. Take care of them. Let them know their father loved them. I said all the right things, but she stayed. Ginny was always a fighter.
That was six months ago. My sons are almost a year old now. I still only know their names, that they have my eyes, that they might be dead.
This will never be right again. If they are dead, if she is out of my life, it is the end of the world.
The war was winding down. We had won and they knew it. Draco Malfoy was out of hiding, had come out for our side, in the end. He had been one of our best spies- in the end, our only spy- and he had earned both my respect and my friendship. He was with Hermione, something about his presence had brought her about, and I was hearing good reports. I could go home in a few weeks, a month at the most.
It was going to be all right.
Last night, I sent and owl to the Burrow. It came back holding a baby blanket and Ginny's engagement ring. I was at the Burrow, where I hadn't returned in nearly two years, in instants. I should say, I was where the Burrow had been. All that was left was a heap of smoldering ash. I was just standing there, staring, when Malfoy got there. I wouldn't have noticed him if he hadn't put a hand on my shoulder.
"They're not dead, Harry," he said, "I know they aren't."
"And how the hell can you say you know that?" I spat, furious with him. I didn't need to be comforted. I didn't want to be comforted.
"There was a note, you prat. We have a day, exactly, stroke of midnight kind of thing," he turned me so that I was facing him. "You know we can do this."
"I know I can," Malfoy rolled his eyes at me, exasperated. I turned away from him, looking at what had once been my home. My sons' home.
"That's absurd, Potter. It was not letting me help when the Dark Lord captured Ron that got him killed and you know it damned well. If you try to do this alone, you will be murdering your sons. If it was me, I'd do everything I could to save them."
"You wouldn't understand."
"That worked three years ago, Potter, not now. You were always the holy Harry Potter and his blasted scar. Well we've all got scars now, haven't we?"
"Not the same scars," I replied, turning back to look at him. "Of course I'm going to do everything I can, that does not involve you. That does not involve Hermione. That involves me."
"And because it's about you, Hermione's involved. And I've not got anything better to do, also, killing Severus Snape is a life goal of mine."
"It's Snape?"
"I thought that would get your attention. Come home with me and I can tell you everything. There's a lot more to the note than there seems."
Two hours later, ever saving my children is looking closer too impossible than anything else. The note for me is short, if I find them before midnight tomorrow, my family will live, but only if I give Snape immunity. Which is not something I'm going to do. As far as I'm concerned, he raised the wand that killed my parents and he murdered Dumbledore, and now he's hurt my babies. The man gets no leniency.
Strategically, this is the easiest thing I've ever had to do. Find someone who wants to be found. But Severus Snape is a twisted bastard, and he wants to kill them. He wants to make my life as hard as he can. So he left a clue that only two people on this planet could understand. Luckily one of them is Malfoy, the other is Pansy Parkinson.