i.
Ron has just interrupted what could be their last kiss ever, and she's so angry that she can't speak. As Harry turns to slink out of the room, he casts one last glance at her, and her mouth forms the beginning of the word, but then he's gone and no sound comes out of her mouth and he's gone and she's too late and he's gone.
Stay, she wants to tell him, stay, forget Ron and forget Riddle, and just stay with me for one more minute.
But she doesn't say it, because she knows he can't. Knows that Harry could no more give up breathing than give up fighting Voldemort, and the door shuts behind him and he's gone.
ii.
Even with his disguise, she knows where Harry is sitting. When Auntie Muriel comments on the cut of Ginny's dress, Ginny winks right at Harry, and she stays twisted around long enough to see him blush. The red of his cheeks clashes horribly with his red hair.
Later, when the dancing starts, Ginny watches Harry out of the corner of her eye. Fred is doing his best to distract her with his ridiculous dance moves, and she laughs, but always she is aware of Harry. Fred squeezes her hand, like he understands, and she is grateful.
When Kingsley's patronus appears and all hell breaks loose, the only thought in her mind is go go GO and in the haze, she sees Hermione grab Harry and Ron and then disappear. The Death Eaters interrogate her family for hours, and when it's finally over and her father sends his patronus, she wills them, wills Harry with all her might stay safe stay safe stay stay stay.
iii.
Hogwarts is not the same, not with Snape and the Carrows prowling around, not with Dumbledore's grave looming on the grounds, and certainly not with Harry gone. When the longing for him is too desperate to ignore, she sneaks into the boys' dormitory and slides into his bed. Seamus kindly pretends not to see her, and Neville gives her a grim smile and a pat on the shoulder.
She breathes in the faint scent of him that remains from last spring, clenches her eyes shut tight, and commands the tears in her eyes to stay where they are.
iv.
When the coin in her pocket heats up, Ginny is ready to go to Hogwarts in an instant, but her parents protest. "Stay with Auntie Muriel," they tell her, but she refuses.
"If you leave me, I will just follow you," she points out, brow furrowed, jaw set, and Mum relents.
They get to the Room of Requirement - almost unrecognizable now - and she finally sees Harry for the first time in almost nine months, and her heart stops for a moment.
When Mum orders her to stay in the Room, she is furious, but she knows that the scene of an actual battle is not the place to make her stand. It hurts - more than she lets herself think about - that Harry sided with her mum, that he told her to stay when he's been running around Merlin knows where for eight months. Bloody hypocrite.
At the first opportunity - provided by Harry himself, ironically - she runs to join the fighting, and even as Harry's words echo come back come back come back, she chants back in her mind stay alive stay alive stay alive.
v.
Hagrid is carrying Harry...Harry's body? No. She pushes the thought away and starts to run, starts to scream. Her dad grabs her and pulls her back, pulls her close, and she can't run anymore, so she screams louder.
"Ginny, stay here!" Dad's voice is loud in her ear. "Stay here, with me. You've got to stay here, you've got to stay alive!"
She hears him, distantly though, because there is a louder voice in her head and it is her own voice in her head: Harry was supposed to stay alive why isn't he alive I want him to be alive I told him to stay alive I should have told him to stay.
vi.
When it's all over, all finally, blessedly over, Ginny finds Harry in the Gryffindor dormitory, Ron and Hermione in Ron's bed close by, and she joins him and rests her head on his chest and falls asleep to the sound of his heartbeat that seems to whisper I'm here stay here I'm here.
When he wakes, he wraps his arms around her and whispers into her hair, "You were supposed to stay in the Room of Requirement."
She slides her arms around him and replies into his shirt, "You were supposed to stay alive."
He holds her tighter.
vii.
Healing comes slowly in the hours and days and weeks after Tom Riddle is finally, irrevocably defeated. Ginny and Harry spend many days by the pond behind the Burrow, sometimes dangling their feet in the water, sometimes watching the dragonflies skim across the surface. Over the course of the summer, Harry tells Ginny everything, and he seems surprised when she doesn't retreat.
"You still want to be with me, after all that?" he asks, hesitantly, like he's afraid of the answer.
She takes his hand. "Do you know, I cried after Dumbledore's funeral, once I got home. I finally let myself cry over you."
Harry grimaces, but Ginny continues, "Mum came in and asked if you would have broken up with me if it weren't for Riddle, and do you know what I said?"
She squeezes his hand as she asks, and he raises his eyebrows at her.
"I said that if it weren't for Riddle, you and I would still be together." She leans over and kisses him gently. He looks at her, a bit dazed.
"You'll stay with me?"
"I'll stay with you, Harry."