Harry

'Dad! Wake up.' I grunt in my sleep, desperately trying to escape the small insistent voice bellowing directly into my ear. I grunt again when my ten year old daughter hits me across the face with a pillow.

'Lily, I've told you not to do that,' I say sitting up and looking at my daughters grinning face.

'Mum told me to do it.'

'Of course she did' I grumble, swinging my legs around to dangle over the bed.

'Harry you had better be awake,' Ginny's voice sounds irritated, as she bellows up the stairs. At times like this she reminds me so much of her mother it genuinely terrifies me.

'I'm up,' I shout back, and hear her walk away, shouting orders to the boys as she goes.

'I like it when you're in trouble,' Lily tells me earnestly, 'It means that I'm not.'

'You can be if it would make you feel better,'

'No it's ok.' She chirps and merrily skips out of the room.

Slowly I start to get myself ready for the day ahead. I stare into the mirror and self-consciously rub the scar on my forehead. It had not so much as twinged in nineteen years, but on days like this one I can still call the pain it used to give me to mind.

It's May the second, a somewhat mixed day. Twenty years ago today our lives were both fixed and torn apart in the war that signified the end of an era. For five days of the year Hogwarts lets certain kids from the school go back to their families as this one day is still one that families want to spend together. Every year my family, the other Weasleys and Teddy Lupin gather at The Burrow and use the day to remember those we lost in the battle.

Looking back on that night it is hard to believe that a night that was so terrible could have been so wonderful in all the new things that began that night.

Ron

After the conversation the trio had had with the portrait of Dumbledore the little energy that Harry had seemed to leave him. His shoulders slumped perceptibly, and he walked away from them as soon as they reached the hallway outside the office. Ron watched him go, extremely anxious for his best mate. They had all been through hell that night, but Harry had been through more than any of them.

'Come on,' Hermione said from his side, sliding her hand in his and giving it a little tug, 'We need to get back to the hall.'

Ron closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. If he was honest with himself the hall was the very last place on earth that he wanted to go. Just the thought of facing his family again made him cold. His mother's tear filled eyes, George's lost expression and worst of all Fred lying cold and dead in the middle of all of them.

Reluctantly he gave into the pressure and followed Hermione back to the great hall. Many of the people who had been gathered there before were now gone, and Ron could make out his family clearly. His mother sat on the floor with Fred's head in her lap smoothing back his head and shaking with sobs. Behind her stood his father with one hand on her shoulder and the other hand around Percy who looked utterly and completely destroyed. George just sat by his twin's side. He wasn't crying, instead he looked utterly lost. This, Ron thought, was much worse that tears. Charlie, Bill and Fleur were nowhere to be seen, probably helping gather the rest of the bodies from around the school. It took him a while to spot Ginny among the group. She was sitting a little way away from the rest of his family, curled into a small ball, rocking back and forwards with her head in her arms.

Hermione immediately went to her, while Ron went to talk to his father.

'Me, Hermione and Ginny are going to the dorms,' He told him in a low whisper.

'I thought you would say that,' the older man looked at his son, and managed to give him a small sad smile.

Ron couldn't return it but squeezed his shoulder saying 'Please try to sleep, all of you.'

He nodded and turned back to his wife. Ron knew that sleep was probably next to impossible for any of them right now, but after the time they had all just lived through they needed to at least try.

It took a while to coax Ginny out of the ball she had formed around herself but eventually she agreed to follow them up there. When Hermione moved to take Ginny up to the girls dorm Ron grabbed her wrist lightly.

'Not tonight. We need to stay together tonight.' She offered him a small nod and slowly they began to trudge up the stairs.

Harry was sprawled across his bed when they entered the room. He looked terrible. His clothes were ripped and filthy, and every inch of him, whether clothed or not was covered in several layers of blood and grime. Underneath it all he was so deathly pale that for a moment Ron was taken back to the dreadful moment when they had all thought that he was dead. From the small sob that escaped Ginny he knew that she must be remembering the same thing, and he glanced at her.

She had stopped shaking now, and as soon as she had recovered herself moved towards Harry.

Without a word Ron pulled Hermione away from them. He knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that Harry needed Ginny more than anything right now. Without a word to Ginny Ron pulled Hermione into the small bathroom that was connected to the dormitory and shut it behind them.

Ginny

The sight of him lying like that on the bed made Ginny's whole body hurt. He was so still that only the steady rise and fall of his chest showed that he was still alive. She took a moment to take in the truly dauntless task ahead of her, shook her head and then moved to get to work.

'Scourgify,' she said quietly, and managed to remove some of the grime off of him. She sighed, realising that she would have to actually wash him. It wasn't so much that she minded, it was more the fact that she would have to wake him up to get him out of the clothes he was wearing.

Turning to the drawers next to his bed she began to rifle through his drawers to find pyjamas for both of them. She got back to work, after putting them on the bedside table. Pointing her wand at the washbowl on the table she used the aguamenti charm to fill it with water, and picked up the washcloth.

He stayed asleep as she began to gently dab at his face with the washcloth. He groaned a little when the cloth made contact with the scar but still did not wake up. She was almost done cleaning the parts of him not covered by cloth when her brother reappeared with Hermione, both of them looking clean and without as many injuries.

'Here,' Hermione said gently, placing a small bottle beside the pyjamas on the table. 'It's Dittany. It should help with his cuts and bruises.'

Ginny just nodded in response, intent on the job at hand. Without another word Hermione walked back to where Ron was watching his sister with sad eyes and pulled him towards his four poster bed.

When Ginny had cleaned the skin she could easily reach she almost groaned. She really didn't want to wake him up, and knew that more than anything else he needed sleep, but she didn't have much of a choice about that matter.

She emptied the bowel of the now dirty water and filled it up again, then scourgified the washcloth, and placed it into the wash bowl. When she was sure that there was no longer anything else she could do to prolong the moment she moved up to his face and planted a kiss on his forehead.

'Harry, I'm really sorry but you have to wake up for a second.'

Harry

As expected as soon as I had gotten to the dormitories I pretty much just fell onto my bed. Images of the past months flashed before my eyes, both the good and the bad. When I came back to reality I was vaguely away of something cool and damp being wiped across the skin on my arms, and didn't open my eyes. It was nice to wake up to something gentle and soothing instead of waking up to worry and stress.

I didn't really understand what was going on until I felt a soft pair of lips make contact with my forehead and then Ginny's low voice urging me to wake up. I slowly opened my eyes to look up at her worried face hovering above me.

'Hey,' my voice came out rough and scratchy and not at all sounding like I had expected.

'Hey, I … urm … you need to take off your shirt for me.' I raised an eyebrow at her and blood flooded her cheeks, 'I need to clean you up harry. No offence but you're filthy.'

For the first time since I had gone into the forest I looked down at myself. She was not wrong. My arms were clean, no doubt thanks to Ginny's ministrations, but my clothes were caked in grime and blood.

I sat up, and sucked in a sharp breath when the movement caused pain in my chest that I had not noticed before thanks to the exhaustion. I tried to smile reassuringly at Ginny when her brows furrowed in renewed concern, although it probably came out as more of a grimace. Gritting my teeth against the pain pulled off my shirt. As soon as she got a good look at me Ginny gasped, and I followed her gaze. My chest was more bruised and bloody than the rest of me. In the space over my heart was a long oozing scar, the same shape as the one on my forehead. The bruise around it spread to my sides, almost completely black in the middle and then getting gradually lighter the further away it got from the wound.

'What happened?' Ginny breathed, unable to take her face away from the grizzly sight.

'Killing curse,' I mumbled, already exhausted again, and grateful that the feeling made the pain recede. Ginny shot me a sharp look when my words sank in, but helped me to lie back down on the bed as it was clear that I was seconds away from slipping back into and uneasy sleep.

'We are going to talk about this.' I heard her say, right before the tendrils of sleep pulled me under.

It was a long time later when I woke up, dressed in clean pyjamas, and with my arm around Ginny's sleeping form. For the first time in a long time I felt completely at peace.

OK so I'm going to try to update this often.

Thanks to MADAM BETH for the idea for this story that I'm kind of using from her great Hunger games story 'The Red X on the Door'

Please review this. I tend to write faster when I get reviews.

Hope you enjoy it xxx