Disclaimer: about ½ of this is verbatim from the books, & so obviously belongs to The Master (JKR). In the other ½, I have used her characters & settings, but the ideas, I think, are at least mostly mine.

a/n: Wow. I'm so glad this is finally finished! It took me a while to write, simple b/c it takes a while to skim all 7 novels for Harry/Ginny moments. Somehow I got the idea of chronicling their relationship (I don't remember how, so if it's yours, I hope you don't mind me borrowing).

Anyway, I'm not sure how good this is, so I hope you all like it.

And, so, with out further ado,…

His Eyes Are As Green As a Fresh Pickled Toad

- o -

"Oh, Mom, can I go on the train and see him, Mom, oh please.…"
"You've already seen him, Ginny, and the poor boy isn't something you goggle at in a zoo."

If Harry had known at age eleven he would end up falling in love with Ginny Weasley, he would have been politely disbelieving. If Ginny had been told Harry Potter would one day fall in love with her, she would have screamed.

The moment she saw Harry, Ginny accidentally knocked her porridge bowl to the floor with a loud clatter. Ginny seemed very prone to knocking things over whenever Harry entered a room.

Ginny always wondered whether, if she could act normal around him, Harry would finally like her. When it actually worked, she thought it mildly amusing that he worried about not acting like a fool around her.

"Leave him alone, he didn't want all that!" said Ginny. It was the first time she had spoken in front of Harry. She was glaring at Malfoy.

Harry never really realized how Ginny had always stood up for him until Hermione casualty pointed it out to him one day. He spent many hours feeling guilty until Hermione also pointed out that he had, in fact, saved Ginny's life at least twice.

Hot all over at the thought of being given a valentine in front of a line of first years, which happened to include Ginny Weasley, Harry tried to escape.

His eyes were as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he were mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord

Whenever Ginny reminded Harry of something particularly embarrassing that she vowed to never let him live down, he could always bring up that song and she would immediately drop the subject.

"Ginny!" Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. "Ginny – don't be dead – please don't be dead –" He flung his wand aside, grabbing Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't petrified. But then she must be –
"Ginny please wake up," Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. "Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side.

When he rescued her from the Chamber of Secrets, she was just a friend, his best mate's sister...Even if she hadn't been all that, she was a person who needed saving. Five years later when he was prepared to die for her she had become the most important thing in his world.

"Right," said Ron, who looked extremely put out, "this is getting stupid. Ginny, you can go with Harry, and I'll just –"
"I can't," said Ginny, and she went scarlet too. "I'm going with – with Neville. He asked me when Hermione said no, and I thought …well…I'm not going to be able to go otherwise, I'm not in fourth year." She looked extremely miserable.

Ginny had to fight back tears at the bad luck of it all late that night in her dormitory, but not quite as hard as she had to fight them after the ball itself, when she saw the look on Harry's face as he watched Cho and Cedric dance.

The door opened and a long mane of red hair appeared.
"Oh hello, Harry!" said Ron's younger sister Ginny, brightly. "I thought I heard your voice."

That, she thought, was the understatement of the year, seeing as she would recognize his voice anywhere.

"But," said Ron, following Hermione along a row of quills on copper pots, "I thought Ginny fancied Harry!"
Hermione looked at him rather pityingly and shook her head.
"Ginny used to fancy Harry, but she gave up on him months ago. Not that she doesn't like you, of course," she added kindly to Harry while she examined a long black-and-gold quill.

It always amused Harry when Ron was overprotective of Ginny, until, about a year later, he suddenly found it a lot less funny.

"Harry – what's going on?" asked Ginny, who looked frightened. "Professor McGonagall says you saw Dad hurt –"

And in that terrible moment he wasn't the boy she secretly still liked, but the only person who knew what had happened to her father.

"I didn't want anyone to talk to me," said Harry, who was feeling more and more nettled.
"Well, that was a bit stupid of you," said Ginny angrily, "seeing as you don't know anyone else but me who's been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how it feels."
Harry remained quiet as the impact of these words hit him. Then he whirled around.
"I forgot," he said.
"Lucky you," said Ginny coolly.
"I'm sorry," Harry said, and he meant it.

Even then she was the only one who could stop him from taking himself too seriously.

"The thing about growing up with Fred and George," said Ginny thoughtfully, "Is that you sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve."

And it was that attitude, among many other things, that made Harry wish so badly she was around when he was off hunting horcruxes.

"Yeah," said Ron slowly, savoring the words, "we won. Did you see the look on Chang's face when Ginny got the snitch right out from under her nose?"

Ginny never told anyone how truly satisfying that win was.

Ron looked highly delighted.
"Well, I always thought he was a bit of an idiot," he said, prodding his queen forward to take Harry's quivering castle. "Good for you. Just choose someone – better – next time."
He cast Harry an oddly furtive look as he said it.
"Well, I've chosen Dean Thomas, would you say he's better?" asked Ginny vaguely.
"WHAT?"

It was lucky, in the end, Harry decided, that he was Ron's best mate.

He tapped Ginny on the shoulder.
"Fancy trying to find a compartment?"
"I can't, Harry, I said I'd meet Dean," said Ginny brightly. "See you later."
"Right," said Harry. He felt a strange twinge of annoyance as she walked away, her long red hair dancing behind her; he had almost forgotten that Ginny did not hang out with him, Ron, and Hermione while at school.

Harry realized much later how dense he'd been.

They chose the one nearest a gold-colored cauldron that was emitting one of the most seductive scents Harry had ever inhaled: Somehow it reminded him simultaneously of treacle tart, the woody smell of a broomstick handle, and something flowery he thought he might have smelled at the Burrow.

Oh, yes – very dense, indeed.

It was as though something large and scaly erupted into life in Harry's stomach, clawing at his insides: Hot blood seemed to flood to his brain, so that all thought was extinguished, replaced by a savage urge to jinx Dean into jelly.

It's just because she's Ron's sister, he told himself. You just don't like seeing her kissing Dean because she's Ron's sister….

But unbidden into his mind came an image of that same deserted corridor with himself kissing Ginny instead.…

Harry lay awake for a long time, looking up at the canopy of his four-poster and trying to convince himself that his feelings for Ginny were entirely elder-brotherly. They had lived, had they not, like brother and sister all summer, playing Quidditch, teasing Ron, and having a laugh about Bill and Phlegm? He had known Ginny for years now.…It was natural he should feel protective…natural that he should want to look out for her…want to rip Dean limb from limb for kissing her…No…he would have to control that particular brotherly feeling.…
Ron gave a great, grunting snore.
She's Ron's sister, Harry told himself firmly. Ron's sister. She's out-of-bounds. He would not risk his friendship with Ron for anything. He punched his pillow into a more comfortable shape and waited for sleep to come, trying his utmost to not allow his thoughts to stray anywhere near Ginny.

In all the time Harry spent agonizing about his best friend's reaction to Harry's dating his sister, he never realized that he was probably the only man in the world Ron thought good enough for her.

She patted him on the arm; Harry felt a swooping sensation in his stomach, but then she walked off to help herself to more butterbeer.

When Harry told her about the effect she had on him those months before they got together, Ginny laughed and told him he'd been doing that to her for years.

"Ginny came into visit while you were unconscious."

And while she neither wept over his lifeless form, or confessed her feelings of deep attraction to him, she did wonder, if she was "over him" why the sight of him lying there made her heart feel like something was squeezing it.

"Well, it was a bad night for romance all around. Ginny and Dean split up too, Harry."
Harry thought there was a rather knowing look in her eye as she told him that, but she could not possibly know that his insides were suddenly dancing the conga.

Hermione was the only one who ever paid enough attention to guess the blatantly obvious.

She's Ron's sister.
But she's ditched Dean!
She's still Ron's sister.
I'm his best mate!
That'll make it worse.
If I talked to him first –
He'd hit you.
What if I don't care?
He's your best mate!

Yet Harry could not help himself talking to Ginny, laughing with her, walking back from practice with her; however much his conscience ached, he found himself wondering how to get her on her own.

This increase in strength of their friendship did not go unnoticed by Ginny, but ironically, she wistfully thought that it was only to her that their closeness caused both pleasure and pain.

He could feel Ginny's eyes on him now but did not meet them; he did not want to see disappointment or anger there.

And even though she was sometimes (inevitably) angry with him, Harry never did see disappointment in her eyes.

"Give it a rest, Hermione!" said Ginny, and Harry was so amazed, so grateful, he looked up. "By the sound of it, Malfoy was trying to use an Unforgivable Curse, you should be glad Harry had something good up his sleeve."
Harry and Ron stared: Hermione and Ginny, who had always got on together very well, were now sitting with their arms folded, glaring in opposite directions. Ron looked nervously at Harry, then snatched up a book at random and hid behind it. Harry, however, little though he knew he deserved it, felt unbelievably cheerful all of a sudden, even though none of them spoke again for the rest of the evening.

If they had both been feeling differently, Hermione would have teased Ginny about Harry being the thing to come between them.

Harry looked around; there was Ginny running toward him; she had a hard, blazing look in her face as she threw her arms around him. And without thinking, without planning it, without worrying about that fact that fifty people were watching, Harry kissed her.

Ginny was always glad he followed his instincts on that one.

After several long moments – or it might have been half an hour – or possibly several sunlit days – they broke apart. The room had gone very quiet. Then several people wolf-whistled and there was an outbreak of nervous giggling. Harry looked over the top of Ginny's head to see Dean Thomas holding a shattered glass in his hand, and Romilda Vane looking as though she might throw something. Hermione was beaming, but Harry's eyes sought Ron. At last he found him, still clutching the Cup and wearing an expression appropriate to having been clubbed over the head. For a fraction of a second they just looked at each other, then Ron gave a tiny jerk of the head that Harry understood to mean, Well – if you must.
The creature in hi chest roaring in triumph, he grinned down at Ginny and gestured wordlessly out of the portrait hole. A long walk in the grounds see mend indicated, during which – if they had time – they might discuss the match.

He would have never told Ron this, but Harry was happy he hadn't played, if this was the result.

After all, it made a very nice change to be talked about because of something that was making him happier that he could remember being for a very long time,

When he told this to Ginny, she smiled in such a way that he spent several days trying to think of something that would make her smile like that again.

"'Your permission,'" scoffed Ginny. "Since when did you give me permission to do anything?"

Harry never told her that, while she didn't need Ron's permission, he kind of did.

A much smaller and warmer hand had enclosed his and was pulling him upward. He obeyed its pressure without really thinking about it. Only as he walked blindly back through the crowd did he realize, from a trace of flowery scent on the air, that it was Ginny who was leading him back into the castle. Incomprehensible voices battered him, sobs and shouts and wails stabbed the knight, but Harry and Ginny walked on, back up the steps into the entrance hall.

She was always there for him to lean on. Then, after Dumbledore died, and after the Battle of Hogwarts. In those long months of grief when he was learning to live in a world without Voldemort.

Hermione's face was glazed with tears, but Ginny was no longer crying. She met Harry's gaze with the same hard, blazing look that he had seen when she had hugged him after winning the Quidditch Cup in his absence, and he knew in that moment they understood each other perfectly, and that when he told her what he was going to do now, she would not say "Be careful," or "Don't do it," but accept his decision, because she wouldn't have expected anything less of him.

"Its for some stupid, noble reason, isn't it?"

It took a kind of strength she never thought she would need not to cry, but she new he couldn't have gone if she had.

What if I don't care?" said Ginny fiercely.
"I care," said Harry. "How do you think I'd feel if this was your funeral…and it was my fault.…"

He was a Gryffindor, through and through, she thought, whether it was a good thing or not. And considering what he had to do, she supposed it was a good thing.

"I never really gave up on you," she said. "Not really. I always hoped.…Hermione told me to get on with my life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more – myself."

"I just wish I'd asked you sooner. We could have had ages…months…years maybe.…"

It was one of his deepest regrets. That if either of them hadn't come through, they would have had so little time together. It was Ginny's job to remind him that they had survived, that they had all the time in the world.

"But you've been too busy saving the Wizarding world," said Ginny, half laughing. "Well…I can't say I'm surprised. I knew this would happen in the end. I knew you wouldn't be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that's why I like you so much."

She spoke the thoughts as they came into her head and part of her was amazed she sounded so calm. She talked partly because the effort of remaining calm left her no strength to stem her words but mostly because she needed him to know she didn't blame him at all.

"Thank goodness," Ginny whispered. They looked at each other; Harry wanted to hug her, hold onto her; he did not even care much that Mrs. Weasley was there, but before he could act on the impulse there was a great crash from the kitchen.
He had been trying to keep fear at bay ever since reaching the Burrow, but now it enveloped him, seeming to crawl over his skin, throbbing in his chest, clogging his throat. As they walked down the back steps into the dark yard, Ginny took his hand.

It was all she could do, then, and only respect for his decision prevented her from doing more. Much later he told her how grateful he was for that simple act.

Ginny looked up into Harry's face, took a deep breath, and said, "Happy seventeenth."

She was looking at him steadily; he however, found it difficult to look back at her; it was like gazing into a brilliant light.

He glanced at her. She was not tearful; that was one of the many wonderful things about Ginny, she was rarely weepy.

"So then I thought, I'd like you to have something to remember me by, you know, if you meet some vela when you're off doing whatever you're doing."
"I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin on the ground, to be honest."
"There's the silver lining I've been looking for," she whispered.

The memory of that kiss haunted both of them for a long time, but Ginny never regretted it. "In case you'd died," she always said. She never acknowledged the possibility that she could have died, but it was always painfully present in Harry's mind.

However, Ron did not appear on the map, and after a while Harry found himself taking it out simply to stare at Ginny's name in the girls' dormitory, wondering whether the intensity with which he gazed at it might break into her sleep, that she would somehow know he was thinking about her, hoping she was all right.

Often Ginny would lay awake, thinking about Harry and fantasize that he was thinking about her. Whether these two events ever happened at the same time, neither ever knew.

There was another noise behind them, and Harry turned. His heart seemed to fail: Ginny was climbing through the hole the wall, closely followed by Fred, George, and Lee Jordan. Ginny gave Harry a radiant smile: he had forgotten, or had never fully appreciated, how beautiful she was, but he had never been less pleased to see her.

Everyone pretended not to believe them when he said his heart failed at the fact she was there at Hogwarts in mortal danger, not simply at the sight of her.

Cho had got to her feet, but Ginny said rather fiercely, "No, Luna will take Harry, won't you Luna?"

When Harry teased her later about being jealous of Cho, Ginny looked embarrassed for a moment. Then she mentioned Dean, which quickly shut Harry up.

"I can't go home!" Ginny shouted, angry tears sparkling in her eyes. "My whole family's here, I can't stand waiting there alone and not knowing and –"
Her eyes met Harry's for the first time. She looked at him beseechingly, but he shook his head and she turned away bitterly.

Harry had to learn that he couldn't always protect her, and Ginny had to learn that she had to sometimes let him.

Ripples of cold undulated over Harry's skin. He wanted to shout out to the night, he wanted Ginny to know that he was there, he wanted her to know where he was going. He wanted to be stopped, to be dragged back, to be sent home.…

Though she was intensely proud of him, it didn't stop her from threatening him to Never. Do. That. Again.

He spotted Ginny two tables away; she was sitting with her head on her mother's shoulder: There would be time to talk later, hours and days and maybe years in which to talk.…

The morning of the first of September was crisp and golden as an apple, and as the little family bobbed across the rumbling road toward the great sooty station, the fumes of car exhausts and the breath of pedestrians sparkled like cobwebs in the cold air. Two large cages rattled on top of the laden trolleys the parents were pushing; the owls inside them hooted indignantly, and the redheaded girl trailed tearfully behind her brothers, clutching her father's arm….

All was well.

a/n: Well, I hope that wasn't too cheesy! PLEASE review & you will get chocolate frogs! & if you liked this (or even if you didn't for that matter) check out my other Harry/Ginny: "Full Circle", It is WAY better.