A/N: My first HPGW one-shot. R&R please!
Regret
Harry now regrets the day he said goodbye.
Exactly seven years has passed since he left Hogwarts. It should have been six, but he did not come for his seventh year.
As he had mentioned to Ron and Hermione on their last day in sixth year, he was to set out and find Voldemort's Horcruxes, and later on, defeat Voldemort himself. The plan had been followed almost smoothly, except that, contrary to what they wanted, Ron and Hermione had not been allowed to embark on the journey.
Harry did not let them.
On the summer after sixth year, Harry stayed a brief one week at the Dursleys', and then just another week at the Burrow, before fleeing in the night to start his journey.
No one ever saw him after that night.
And no one knew what he had set out to do. No one but Ron and Hermione, who would not talk, in the light of honoring their word to Harry.
Ginny Weasley had, for two years, remained restless. She was constantly worried about Harry, and no amount of comfort would let her sleep.
The Order went on about their usual business; tracking down suspected Death Eaters, confiscating evil weapons. It was remarkable that even after Dumbledore's death and Harry's departure, they operated in complete normality, as though the two aforementioned never actually existed.
Ginny had then concluded that the Order of the Phoenix was nothing more than a brigade of dreamers with no real achievement, having their brains diminished with the disappearance of two key members.
Harry Potter had been inducted into the Order as well, on his first night at the Burrow in fact. Everyone thought he was happy to be in, but being a member of the Order was not what Harry wanted, it appeared.
He wanted to find the Horcruxes on his own. He wanted to find them and powderize them. He wanted to find Voldemort too.
He wanted to kill Voldemort.
And so he did.
For seven years after his mysterious flight, he had finally returned, whole and well, to the Burrow. Except that the Burrow had lost it's former welcoming air, it's light, it's seeming joy.
The Weasleys had lost a member.
Harry was filled in on his first night.
"Death Eaters attacked Hogwarts six years ago. Right after we – Hermione and I – left," said Ron.
"You-Know-Who was not there himself. But it was grave all the same," Hermione explained.
"Voldemort was after me at the time. He could not have gone to Hogwarts. He was too focused on catching me," Harry said.
It was true. He was in search of the Horcruxes at that time, and Voldemort had found out about his strategic plan, and decided that Harry Potter needed a far greater amount of attention than an ordinary seventeen-year-old boy. Harry Potter was a threat.
Voldemort chased Harry day in and day out. Harry himself barely had time to eat and sleep for anytime Voldemort and his army might turn up at his staying place and corner him. He was practically sleepless and hungry most of the time.
A year after, Harry had been renamed. He was not anymore "The Boy Who Lived," or "The Chosen One." Newspapers around the world, (newspapers in the wizarding world, at least) featured "The Savior of the Wizarding World."
He had killed Voldemort. The many years of grief and fear of safety for the wizarding world were over. People could walk and talk and laugh freely in the streets. Anyone could take a stroll in the night without fearing that they would never come back. There were no more empty stores, blank houses, grieving widows. The world was peaceful. The world was safe. Harry Potter saved it.
With the victory over the long-term enemy, Harry Potter grew famous in every way possible. Even folks of magical communities from other countries came to Britain in the hope of glimpsing the no-longer Potter boy, but Mr. Harry Potter.
But no luck for them.
Harry did not return to Britain until after several years. No one knew how he had indeed defeated the Dark Lord; all they knew was that Lord Voldemort was gone, and in the light of this they should celebrate.
Now Harry stands here.
Alone.
Cold.
Willing himself to not feel regret.
And yet, regret was pouring out from his soul.
He could still remember the night he fled from the Burrow.
He was already attaching his trunk to his broom. He had always preferred flying over Apparating. He was crouched out low in the Weasleys' garden, when a small voice called to him.
"Harry, don't."
Harry turned and saw Ginny Weasley standing in the doorframe of the kitchen back door. Harry opened his mouth to answer, but Ginny spoke again.
"Don't tell me it's your destiny. You know you can change it."
"I don't want to change it. I want to kill Voldemort."
"You can do it in another way."
"I want to do it this way. I don't want – "
"Everyone to think you're a coward? Harry you had long before proved you aren't."
"I have to do this, Ginny."
Ginny heaved a sigh and spoke one last time.
"I'll be waiting, Harry."
Harry approached Ginny and kissed her on the forehead.
"I still, and always will, love you, Ginny. See you." And he flew away, Ginny staring out at the sky in the hopes that she would one day see him flying down to meet her.
But she never lived to see the day Harry came back.
He still loves Ginny Weasley. To this day, he still does. But he can never let Ginny feel it now. Not now, when he was seven years late.
What made everything a million times more hurtful was the thought that Ginny had died within the walls of Hogwarts, the walls that Harry regarded as the safest in the world.
Never had it crossed his mind that the person he loved the most would be extinguished in the place he had named as home.
Ginny Weasley had died seven years before.
She had died at Hogwarts, when the Death Eaters attacked.
She had died along with other young people, innocent and only just beginning to dream of their future.
Ginny, Harry's beloved, had died waiting for Harry.
And Harry indeed came back.
He had come back.
And here he stands now.
In front of Ginny Weasley's grave.
Hogwarts, in fact, had become a graveyard.
And among the many tombstones was Ginny's.
Her name printed, and a passage followed.
"Dearest Ginny, loving daughter and friend."
Harry stood staring but not really seeing.
Regretting the day he said goodbye.
A/N: Now you've reached this part, review!