Author's Notes: I began this one-shot several months ago, thought I lost it in a recent comptuer crash, and found it again today...I had to complete it. This is a one-shot that takes place right after the end of DH. Details Ginny and Harry's reunion and dealing with the loss of Fred. I quite like this one. :)

Higher Than Pain

It was over.

He had known that from the moment he had seen the grotesque, twisted arc of Voldemort's fall, like some prosaic ballet motion gone wrong; still, it was as though that fact, that knowledge of a definite ending hadn't fully settled in until now, until the moment he laid the Elder Wand to rest in Dumbledore's tomb. But as he stood beside the cracked ivory encasement and watched Hermione resealing it with magic, he felt suddenly as though a great weight had settled on his chest; it was over, but the price had been so high…

" I'm going to miss them." He said suddenly, the words unbidden but seeming somehow to need speaking. " Lupin and Tonks and…and…"

Ron's eyes grew very moist, and he turned away; Harry couldn't bring himself to speak Fred's name, to dwell for any more than a moment on the whimsical, mischievous friend and brother they had lost in the fight; of all the losses they had suffered, those of Fred and Lupin had devastated Harry the most.

Because with Fred, Harry had lost a brother and a part of himself; and with Lupin, the final remnant of the Marauders had been wiped out, the last and strongest physical link to his father that Harry had had left. This realization cut him to the bone, to the soul, made him feel as weak and weary as though he had dueled Voldemort for years, not merely minutes.

He didn't realize his knees had buckled until Ron caught him around the chest, supporting him.

" Easy, mate." Ron's tone was steady, somehow unafraid, as though his close friends collapsed around him frequently. He sank to his knees supporting Harry's weight, and Hermione crouched beside them, her large brown eyes glistening with distress—because the moment they hit the ground, Harry began to weep, to sob as he hadn't done since he was child. There was relief in his tears, and suffering, and loss, and hope. And his friends simply sat beside him and let him cry, and Hermione even joined after a time.

And all the while Harry's mind reviewed every detail of every event that had transpired of late; the terror that had engulfed him at the knowledge that the school would be attacked, the warmth of pride as he gazed around at the members of Dumbledore's Army, the desperation that had driven him to pursue Snape into the Shrieking Shack, the horror at seeing his once-professor struck down by the last Horcrux…and then the feelings changed; he felt again that terrible, agonizing sorrow at seeing his friends dead, injured, and dying, the pain of Snape's memories, viewed through the looking glass that was the Pensive…the strange liberation of knowing, finally, the cause of the past and the course of the future…the abject terror as he walked the shadowed path to his death…the sick, twisted joy at seeing his parents, so precious, for the first time in three years, Sirius, his beloved godfather, who had once meant more to him than any other, and Lupin, for whom his grief was so raw and fresh, once more…

And then he relived the torture of the moment in which Voldemort slew him…the peaceful wonder of seeing Professor Dumbledore, his once-mentor and so missed friend, again…the sensation of the Cruciatus curse, contorting him at every possible angle…the horror of seeing Neville igniting beneath the Sorting Hat…and then the euphoria of the final battle had driven all else from his mind, until the moment that Voldemort had fallen for the second and final time.

These emotions and these memories bled from him in the form of tears until his eyes itched and grew red, and then, at last, he managed to pull away from Ron's solid arms, to shift himself so that he was sitting at a triangle-point away from Ron and Hermione, to wipe his hand across his face and let himself feel foolish.

" Sorry." He muttered.

" It's quite alright, Harry." Hermione murmured, resting her hands on his shoulders. " You've just…you've just said what I think everyone…everyone wants to say, but they…we're all trying very hard to be strong, of course, Harry, but I think crying shows real strength, it shows that you're strong enough to feel pain…"

" It's not just pain." Harry replied, feeling himself growing flushed at her dismissive words. " I'm…I can be happy. I will be happy. But right now it's just hard…it's really hard to imagine life without Fred, or Lupin, or Tonks…"

" I know, mate." Ron's voice was anguished. " But…at least we've got each other, right?" As he spoke, he reached out and seized Harry's elbow, at the same moment claiming Hermione's hand.

" He's right, you know." Hermione's voice was soft, and she twined her fingers through Harry's, as well, catching and holding his gaze. " At least we're all still alive. That's all we needed to get through in the past, isn't it? I'm sure…we'll find a way."

" And if there's anything you need, mate, " Ron added, nodding to Harry. " We're here for you."

" Thanks, but…I think I'm fine." Harry assured him.

He looked toward the castle, a half-decimated beacon against the rapidly-lightening sky; the pale fingers of the sun gripped the fortress in a loose fist, piercing through the shattered windows, sending bright rays arcing toward the three where they sat near lake's edge, so far removed from the grief and uncertainty of their compatriots that it seemed they were of another world—and yet their anguish was the same.

And suddenly, Harry was struck by a thought so tantalizing, so wonderful, it seemed as though nothing so great could possibly be attainable.

" Harry?" Hermione spoke his name tentatively, clearly sensing the change in him, the determination with which he wiped his eyes and clambered unsteadily to his feet.

" I was wrong." Harry said, and his voice was a whisper. " There is something you can do."

" Anything." Ron replied fervently.

" I need the pair of you to find someone and send her to me..."

He was sitting, leaning against Dumbledore's tomb, eyes closed and head thrown back, when she found him; he knew it was her by the scent of her skin and the familiar warmth of her hand in his. She didn't speak...she simply sat beside him, and rested her head against his shoulder. And he, by instinct, wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him.

They listened in the solace of silence to the chirring of the birds in the forest and the soft breathing of the creatures in the lake. They could see little of the grounds from their vantage point, but for Harry, simply being able to see the sky overhead was enough. To breathe in the fresh, clean air, untainted by the smell of blood, and to feel Ginny's warm palm against his. This was what made living worthwhile, what had ultimately decided him to come back, rather than to go beyond. It was many things, and it was all one thing—one person, the girl sitting beside him, her tears now falling onto his tattered, singed, and bloodied shirt.

" I'm going to miss them." She murmured, turning her face more fully into his shoulder. " Especially Fred. He may have teased me, but he always cared. I remember how he came into my room every night after Riddle's diary took...after my second year." She amended, halting after every few words to draw in deep, shuddering breaths. " He would come and...and talk to me when I had nightmares...and he always gave me such good advice..."

Harry wanted nothing more then to turn, to curve his body around hers and shield her from all of the pain, the hopelessness, the suffering that was now a very real part of their world. Always it had been there, straying about the edges but never penetrating, piercing into them as it did now...that feeling that their lives had been tattered and ruined and could never be rebuilt.

This consciousness was one Harry ached to relieve from Ginny's mind, but he could only listen, helplessly, morbidly fascinated, as she continued to speak, her words and her tears mingled, a sad, sad sonnet that, like the song of the phoenix whom Harry had not seen for over a year, was heartbreakingly beautiful.

" A-And Tonks...she was so funny, and so kind...she would always talk to me like I was an adult, not...not like Mum, she still acts as if I'm a child. And Remus...I learned so much from him...he was like an u-uncle..."

" I know." Harry grimaced, tightening his hold even further around her waist, drawing her so near to him it was almost uncomfortable. " It's going to be tough, Ginny, but we'll make it. We...we have to."

She nodded against his shoulder, sniffling very loudly. Harry reached his free hand around to stroke her cheek, to push her hair behind her ear—allowing himself a moment to realize that, for the first time in endless, endless months, he was holding her with abandon, holding her without fear of her closeness, holding her without the terror that his enemies would somehow see, would somehow know, and would, somehow, take her from him...

" It's really o-over." Ginny whispered, her words muffled in the folds of his dirty shirt. " But it doesn't feel like it. It feels like the pain won't ever, ever end...like everything that's good is gone, and there's nothing in this life that's precious anymore."

He listened to her words, horrified by the desperation, by the longing that made him wonder if her grief—which, he thought, he did not understand—was so terrible that she wished to be reunited with her cherished older brother, in death.

But that would be an abomination beyond all other abominations; for Ginevra Weasley, so wonderful, so kind, so strong, to be gone from this world...for her eyes never to sparkle again, for her laughter never to ring like the chiming of bells in his ears...it was pain beyond endurance simply to conceive it.

And Harry, seized by a sudden, blinding inspiration—as though the wise spirit of Albus Dumbledore was speaking in his ear, moving him, guiding him—pulled away from Ginny. She looked up at him, beautiful face tear-streaked, brown eyes full of question. Harry got to his feet and offered her his free hand, the one she did not already hold.

" Come with me." He said.

And Ginny, trusting, took his free hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet; he held her close to his side as they walked toward the forest, feeling every inch of her against him, and pressing himself closer, as though by doing so he could make their bodies one; that the love he had for her...the love that had prevented Voldemort's powerful magic-lore from binding her tongue as she cried out for him hours before...would tie them to life, perhaps to a life together that would go on, he hoped, as long as Dumbledore's had...countless year of happiness with each other.

The thought was like a bright, bright spark in the darkest and most desolate of nights. Feeling quite certain of his destination, now, Harry drew Ginny along, guiding her as well as being led, and at last they reached the edge of the Forest. As though some obscure magic over it had broken, the trees looked faintly less dim, more verdant, and the shadows weaving between their trunks were somehow lacking their substantial depth.

" Look." Harry said, squeezing the one of Ginny's hands that he still held. " The world is changing."

He lowered his eyes as he spoke, seeing in a moment what he was looking for. He knelt, and Ginny crouched beside him, and together they stared at the single fiery flower that jutted from the moist loam, its petals embracing the sunlight in a warm hold.

" It's beautiful." Ginny whispered, and there was sincerity of wonder in her voice. Harry, processing her words, reached down, and plucked the flower from the earth.

Ginny stared at the blossom lolling aimlessly about in his scarred hand, and her eyes were confused, austere.

" You killed it." She rebuked him.

" Yes." Harry agreed, and he tucked the flower behind her ear as he said it. " But it's still beautiful."

Ginny stared at him for a very long moment, and Harry stared back, watching the undulating tide of her hair, the way the sunlight formed a glowing halo of gold around her head, the way her eyes grew steadily brighter as she studied him...

And then her arms were around his neck, and his were around her waist, and she was embracing him with all of the strength in her body. And Harry felt that he should like to never move, not once, for the rest of his life. That the days and months and years that he had envisioned for them could be spent like this—right here, in the glow of the newly risen sun, with her living body warm against his and their hearts beating in tandem—and it would be enough.

" You died." She said the words, her mouth so close to his ear that for a moment he thought it his own mind that had spoken, in light and lilting tones.

" Yes." He repeated. " For you...for all of you."

Her arms tightened around his neck, a constriction and an embrace in one.

" Don't ever leave me again."

" I won't."

Such an easy promise to make, and in this moment he did not want to leave her again...he aspired for nothing more than to cling to her, like a drowning man to his single source of hope, adrift in a sea of confusion and uncertainty.

She was his savior in this endless night.

But he was human, and she was human, and they had trite human needs; and as her stomach grumbled against his, he laughed. It felt like something inside of him was breaking as he did so, the goodness and happiness that was his whole, self, untainted soul and all, shining through. Ginny laughed, too, though weakly, and pulled back. Her eyes were haunted but her face was calm.

" There's something I want to do." She whispered. " Before we go back."

It was her who led this time, her hand that tugged insistently against his, and Harry was content to follow, to watch her endlessly, as they followed the edge of the Forest around the lake, neared the school—and stopped several yards out.

Ginny released Harry's hand, stepped away from the sheltering shadows of the trees, and raised her wand on high.

" Fred." She spoke to the empty air as though her brother stood before her, alive and well, his eyes twinkling with mischief, waiting for her words—and Harry, feeling slightly intrusive, melted back into the shade, ever watchful. " You were...the best older brother I could've had. You listened to me, you teased me, you mocked me, you loved me, you always made me feel at home. And now...I guess it's time for goodbye, because Thicknesse came after me and you and Percy had to play heroes."

Harry could hear her voice trembling; desperate, in true anguish with the need to console her, he moved from the shadows and came to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her as she sagged slightly, seeming unable to stand.

But though her body shook with the likeness of a windblown leaf, and her breaths ripped through her chest like fire, she did not waver in her words; her voice, strong, carried across the lake, caressed the forest, and stabbed deep into Harry's heart.

" You and George were always two halves of a whole, and now there's a piece of me missing...a piece of us all. But we'll find a way to make it. After all, I...I don't think you, of all people, would've wanted us to waste one second wishing we could change things. You never did. If there's one thing I learned from you...it's that you have to take life as it happens, and hope the rest will mend itself down the road."

As she spoke, Ginny drew her wand from the waistband of her jeans; Harry watched, eyes stinging he-knew-not-why, as Ginny slashed her wand through the air; a loud bang issued from the wand's tip, along with several red sparks that revolved on the spot and formed words.

FRED WEASLEY.

And beneath it,

LAUGHTER IS HIGHER THAN ALL PAIN.

Harry, knowing instinctively what to do—knowing, as if Ginny had told him, or as if her mind was his own—stepped forward and lifted his newly-repaired wand at shoulder level. It was a wonderful, throbbing sensation of warmth that filled him as he murmured the necessary words, tracing his wand through the air.

Slowly, the earth beneath their feet crumbled away; from the dust rose a stone, misshapen and filthy, and as Ginny continued to stare at her own self-formed, hovering script, her eyes growing steadily brighter with each passing moment, Harry honed his meager sculpting skills to shape the stone into something resembling a marker.

And at last, he stood at her side again, and Ginny waved her wand; the red letters drifted back, struck the stone at the lake's edge, and burned cleanly into it.

Ginny's arm dropped to her side.

" I'll always love you, Fred." She whispered.

And then she was sobbing bitterly into Harry's chest, and he was holding onto her with all of his might. And the tears were fresh in his eyes too, but the love, like the laughter that was Fred Weasley, and the kindness that was Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, and the wisdom that was Remus Lupin, was timeless and powerful, far more lasting, higher than the pain.

" We'll heal." Harry whispered into Ginny's ear. " They gave their lives so we'd have the time. All the time we need to make their sacrifice worthwhile."

Her hands were tight against his back as she nodded.

" I'll never forget them." Her voice was a choked, strangled sob.

" Neither will I." Harry assured her, and most potently behind his lids he saw Fred's face, uplifted in a great, grand smile of true happiness, and Tonks, laughing aloud, and Remus, grinning broadly, younger by far than his years—the fading echo of the last laugh, the last moment, the last smile. " But they died for something...they died for us. And we're still here."

Ginny nodded wordlessly.

" I'll never let go." She whispered, and he felt as though she was speaking of him—of this that they had, now, their closeness and their love—as much as of those who had gone before them and died, their blood a scarlet carpet that had led Harry to his end, to Voldemort's end, and, ultimately, to a new beginning.

" I won't let go either, Gin." Harry promised her. " Never."

A shrill note pierced through his passionate vow; Ginny's head turned against his chest, lifted, as did his, and they gazed in rapture and wonder at the great, long-forgotten creature soaring over the lake, wingtips to water, fire against glass; the phoenix had returned, and its shrill, musical cry was a ballad of indescribable joy as it soared heavenward, higher than the last visible, fast-fading stars—higher than the pain, celebrating the wonder of victory.

Ginny's eyes closed as they listened to that intangibly ethereal song, and she rested her head against Harry's shoulder once more.

And as he held her close to his side, he turned her toward the castle—where he knew her family waited, with Hermione, with all of the survivors who, like them, would be looking beyond the grief—to hope.

The last three years had been agony, torture and fear, the darkest, deepest, most infinite midnight. There had been no sign of escape, no reprieve from the darkness. But now—in the golden rays of hope that shined from the castle windows, light and possibility always—there was the first trace of dawn.

And as Harry guided Ginny gently toward the love of her family—and toward the possibility, at last, of normalcy in sustenance—he could not resist glancing back at the pewter-gray, crude headstone at the lake's edge, abandoned by the phoenix for the sake of the tall, tall towers of the school. The marker would stand as memoriam for Fred Weasley—a great man, a true son of justice, one who had lived and died for others—for their laughter, for their safety, for their lives.

Simple words did not do him justice.

And as they walked, Harry's arm around Ginny's waist and her hand in his, he drew his wand and aimed it back over his shoulder, speaking the words that would be forever carved into the headstone, words that completed the last puzzle that began healing.

"Mischief Managed."