Ginny awoke with a calm sense of purpose. She had a feeling that she hadn't felt since June; something she could only describe as a brightness in her stomach, a prolonged puddle of missed-stair adrenaline in the very middle of her.
But all the same, she felt calm; the uneasiness of the night before was gone, solidified into a reckless resolve.
She sat up and scrunched the covers in her fists, then slowly got out of bed and dressed. She brushed her hair and put on that flowery perfume Fred and George had gotten her last year. She hadn't worn it since the funeral. It smelled like the Hogwarts grounds and it smelled like Harry.
Ginny could hear voices downstairs and feet on the landing, but did not join them. She'd already decided not to go down to breakfast. Instead, she sat at her desk and looked out the window. The golden flag atop the marquee was snapping in the morning breeze, shining like molten galleons in the sunlight. She picked up a book, but couldn't focus. The same sentences seemed to repeat endlessly on every page, and she soon closed it and returned to looking out the window. People were talking even louder downstairs. She heard Mr. Delacour's unctuous chuckle, Harry's repeated thanks, her mother's anxious voice. Mum was always anxious these days. The presents were taking an awfully long time.
Suddenly, there were footsteps and voices on the stairs; she heard Hermione speaking. Ginny jumped up, heart pounding, then checked herself. She walked slowly and deliberately to the door and opened it.
"Harry, will you come in here a moment?" she said.
Ron stopped mid-step to stare at her, but Hermione grasped his arm and pulled him upstairs. Harry hesitated slightly, then followed her into her room. Was it her imagination, or did he look even older? She closed the door behind them.
He was gazing nervously around her room as she approached. She looked up into his face, took a deep breath, and said, "Happy seventeenth."
"Yeah...thanks," he said.
He seemed unwilling or unable to look at her. Instead, he gestured vaguely at the window, and mumbled, "Nice view." She ignored this.
"I couldn't think what to get you." she said.
"You didn't have to get me anything."
"I didn't know what would be useful," she continued. "Nothing too big, because you wouldn't be able to take it with you."
He glanced at her then, and she continued to gaze at him steadily. She took a step towards him. He looked older than seventeen; he looked tired.
"So then I thought, I'd like you to have something to remember me by, you know, if you meet some veela when you're off doing whatever you're doing." Ginny knew perfectly well what he would be doing, and she was not about to let him go fight a war without knowing how much she loved him and how much she needed that flowery perfume to help her think of good things, good things, Harry alive, not dead, but alive, kissing her in the sunshine by the lake, and maybe if he knew how much she loved him, had always loved him, she could keep him alive. Ron and Hermione would find each other, she knew, but Harry would have no one and she needed to give him something to keep him alive and maybe he could give her something back to keep her alive too.
She felt strangely calm, despite her frenzied thoughts. She continued to look steadily at Harry.
"I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin on the ground, to be honest," he said, sort-of smiling.
"There's the silver lining I've been looking for," Ginny whispered, and then she was kissing him like she'd never kissed him before and all that sense of purpose got burned up as the brightness in her stomach flared into heady warmth — this was all she'd really wanted, just the feel of his hands on her back and in her hair, she'd just thought she would have to go farther to get it, Harry and the flowery perfume and the sunlight and the warmth inside her and she needed more of it, more, more, and by god, that reckless resolve was back, and she would damn well give him something to remember her by and she would remember him by it too, and someday —
The door banged open and they jumped apart as if electrocuted.
Ron stood there, glaring. "Oh," he said flatly. "Sorry."
"Ron!" Hermione appeared, too, panting slightly. There was a moment of excruciating silence.
"Well, happy birthday anyway, Harry," Ginny said tonelessly. There was more silence, and she wanted to scream at Ron and push him down the stairs and close the door again, but she just turned around as her throat constricted and her eyes suddenly burned with tears.
"I'll see you later," she heard Harry say, and then they were gone.
She stayed still for a very long time after that. Tears ran silently down her face until she heard Ron stop mouthing off Harry outside and come back in. She heard their footsteps on the stairs again, but did not move until they had long since disappeared into their rooms. Then she washed her face and started downstairs to help prepare for lunch.