A/N: Just off the top of head. I don't know...I've never written Harry/Ginny before. Let me know what think!

There was always a bed for him at Hogwarts. Harry stared into the fireplace, smiling slightly at the thought. It reminded him of being eleven again, and seeing all of this for the first time. It was incredible—the idea that he hadn't known then…

He glanced at the Butterbeer in his hand, a momento from the party that only finished up an hour ago in the Gryffindor Common Room, one of the places still actually intact after the battle. Gryffindor students old and new spent one last night together, drunk on their hope and their victory. The castle was mostly destroyed, but no one seemed to want to leave yet, still reeling from recent events. It seemed that, for one night, everyone had wordlessly agreed to forget all those they had lost—to cry and mourn tomorrow. There was nothing left to his drink, but he tipped it forward the entire way, reaching for the dregs of taste left. Ron and Hermione had gone off a half a hour ago, and Harry was happy to see it. He understood how they felt and why they wanted to be together. To live.

Voldemort was dead. Every time he stated it in his head, the words gave him pause. Voldemort was never coming back. Voldemort was dead. Harry no longer felt like he was on the edge of a precipice, but that he had to keep moving, running from nothing and everything. He wriggled the empty bottle idly with his fingers. And now…what was next? What was next…

"Don't you ever just want to sleep?" came a voice behind him. Harry turned, startled and especially jumpy since this whole ordeal. There was his ex-girlfriend, her hands on her slender hips, and a beautiful picture in the dim, orange light. Harry's heart thumped in his chest a little faster. He hadn't really seen her since he had looked over and saw her slumped in her mother's arms in the hall hours ago. He hadn't heard her speak since he was only feet from her before he entered the Forbidden Forest, and she was soothing that kid on the grounds and he wanted so desperately to just remove his cloak and let her see him before...

"Hi," Harry choked on the simple syllable, wanting to look away from her and at the same time being unable to. Seeing her brought up so much. And he loved her. He was more sure of that now than he had been of anything he had ever known in his life.

"I was hoping…" she sat down across from him, but dropped off. He could already figure out what she was going to say. He briefly wondered to himself whether he had been sitting here by design, if on some subconscious level, he had been waiting for her. She was staring at the fire now, too.

"I saw Ron and Hermione on my way in." She grinned slightly. "They seemed happy."

"Yeah," Harry croaked. He felt his face get a little hot. Why couldn't he talk to her? His throat felt suddenly like sandpaper and every attempt to swallow was nothing but dry air. After all of his talking in the showdown with Voldemort, loud and confident and freeing, his nervousness amazed him.

Ginny didn't say anything more, but didn't get up either. He knew that she was waiting for him to say something…to give her some idiot sign that women seemed to know about, but men always scrambled in the dark for. But he was bone-tired, and he couldn't do anything but be honest.

"I'm sorry, you know," he still sounded hoarse, but Ginny turned to look at him, watching him expectantly. "I'm sorry about all of this year." He felt his eyes on her as he stared at the empty bottle, trying to gather his thoughts and make her see what he was trying to say. "I wouldn't change doing it…but I know it wasn't fair, and I'm sorry."

He wanted to tell her other things: that he thought of her all of the time when he was on his quest, for lack of a better word. And sometimes he had missed her like an open wound, the memories ripping through him with the violence of a wielded sword. And he remembered when she was younger and had that silly crush on him and it made him cringe and smile at the same time. And he remembered saving her life from Tom Riddle, and that it was the best thing he ever did, at least in his mind.

"I just wanted…" his fingers tightened on the glass neck and then relaxed, almost imperceptibly, "you to be safe. I couldn't have done…any of this if you weren't. I would have...I would have lost my mind or something."

When he finally had the stones to look up at her face, soft and beautiful, she was shaking her head, affectionate exasperation in her expression. "You heroes…always apologizing for things. For being noble and brave. Why?"

"I'm not a hero, Ginny," he responded quickly and seriously. "I'm not—if all of this hadn't happened, I…" he wished he was more articulate. "The prophecy, the wand, it was all supposed to happen. It had to be me."

"Fate?"

"Pretty much." His mother gave her life for him, Snape and his father gave their lives for his mother, countless others jumped in front of him, protecting him. Sirius had disappeared behind the veil, the phantom laughter on his face. Sirius told him that dying wouldn't hurt, and he was as he had been so many years ago, young and handsome. Lupin's boy was all alone in this world, because his parents were incredibly selfless and good, confident that his son would forgive him that sacrifice, like Harry had his parents.

"Does that matter?" There was a fierce, unsuppressed look in her eyes and Harry waited for her to continue. "Merlin, Harry…it doesn't make you any less than what you are. Did you ever stop to consider why it had to be you?"

At her words, her face faded into the distance, and he saw his old headmaster, the desk between them, persisting in making him believe the same thing she was. "In spite of all the temptation you have endured, all the suffering, you remain pure of heart, as pure as you were five years ago, when you looked into a mirror that reflected your heart's desire."

The Mirror of Erised brought about other images, conjured from the height of his emotion. "I saw my parents…" He hadn't told anyone that, so he spoke it to the dying fire in front of her, the memory of it being difficult and immensely private. "Right before I met Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest."

Ginny looked momentarily touched at his vulnerability, then she opened her mouth to presumably ask how the hell that would be possible, but then closed it again, a pensive expression on her face. "What did they say?"

He shrugged, quite immediately regretting that he had brought it up at all. "They were just…preparing me…for what I was going to do."

"Die, you mean."

The words were so flat that his stomach dropped a little. Not 24 hours ago, he had gone to die in the woods, without saying goodbye to her. And by some incredible fluke, he was sitting here talking to her. But that wasn't what he had intended when he walked past her, unseen. He nodded and he felt her warm, smooth fingers brush against his as she reached over and took his useless bottle from him, placing it on the table.

"I would have understood…" this time, she swallowed, looking upset for the first time since she had appeared behind him, and the look on her face gave him a nearly irrepressible desire to hold her, which he checked, just like he had the rest of his feelings for the last year. He was in awe of her. In the face of everything that he had lost, she would have probably even understood if he had wanted to die. She went on. "I would have hated it, but I would have understood, just like everything else that you've done."

He was so grateful to her for that. "Not many people would," he pointed out, needing her to know.

"Well, maybe not many people want to be with you like I do…not really," she gave him a weak smirk, which he returned faintly.

"So you still—"

"Don't be stupid," she rolled her eyes. "I mean, all of this time I've been waiting on you, not the other way around, you prat."

He nodded almost sheepishly, but a smile was beginning to bloom on his face. It was well and truly over and he had time to just have a normal life and a normal relationship. And that was weird, and it made him incredibly happy.

"But c'mon, Potter, think about it…" she hedged a little closer to him, so slightly that he couldn't be sure that she was moving. "You've stopped a great evil…how many times?"

"Dunno…" he was grinning, squelching the urge to shake his head hopelessly at her.

"You rode a Firebolt against a dragon."

"A Hungarian Horntail."

"Saved the life of an innocent hippogriff."

"Buckbeak sent Malfoy to the hospital wing, I owed him one."

"Dueled against Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries."

It was funny how when she retold it, he didn't feel any of the pain that he could have associated with the things he had done. He just felt relief. He was alive, she was here and alive, and all they wanted was each other.

"And…" her face was suddenly before him, her eyes shining and blazing with that quality that was just hers and a smile on her lips. She smelled like strawberries. He closed his eyes and let it surround him. He touched her hair, fingering the soft strands. "You destroyed the basilisk with only a sword."

"Well…I had to bring you back."

She kissed him, warm and insistent. She tasted like firewhiskey, courage, Quidditch, and months of wanting. All that he wanted now. He helplessly wrapped an arm around her back and pressed closer, taking control of the kiss before he was aware of it. And they lost themselves in it for a long time, blessedly undisturbed, until he was bowing her back, unable to keep from taking everything from her that she had to give. And he groaned a little when she shifted away at that, pulling away from his embrace just slightly.

He watched her almost hungrily as she took his hand in hers, clasping his larger one and kissing it. "You're shaking…" she said breathlessly.

His forehead met hers and he closed his eyes again. "I know…I know." He squeezed her smaller fingers. "It hasn't stopped…"

He felt her hand on his cheek and he pulled back obediently, knowing her the commands of her touch. She looked him square in the eye, looking just as desperate and certain as he did. "I love you. And I don't care about any of it. I never did."

And all he could do was nod. Because after all of it, those were the perfect words, and they gave him a peace he had never felt in his life, more than his acceptance of death and his defeat of Voldemort. And life was okay, if he could just be with her.

"Plus, you were Quidditch Captain…"

When he opened his eyes, she smiling impishly at him and joy soared in his heart and laughter bubbled over as he hugged her to him and she shook with laughter herself. It was the beginning. And all was well.