A/N: It's been years since I've written HP fic, but I recently reread the series for the first time in a long time and... here I am again. This story has an M rating. That is a strong M rating. There will be explicit things. This part is just a prologue, so it is pretty short. This story itself won't be very long. Around ten chapters at most (but maybe closer to five.) I haven't written anything in ages and would love any sort of feedback because I know I'm rusty and could certainly use some constructive criticism.

PROLOGUE

Everything had been leading up to this. At least, that was how it seemed. Every moment in the past few days, the past few weeks, the past few months, the past few years... . All of it, every moment, was leading up to this. And now that it was finally happening, it was like all of the events on the way were just minor roadblocks. Nothing more. Just small inconveniences.

That wasn't true, of course. It couldn't be further from the truth. But at that moment, with Ginny wrapped tightly in Harry's arms, kissing him for the first time since before...since before it had all happened, it was almost like everything in between didn't matter anymore. Blissful oblivion. It would all come back soon. She knew that. The minute they broke apart and went back inside to The Burrow, it would all become real again. But for now, she didn't mind the distraction. She welcomed it.

"You have no idea," Harry mumbled, his mouth still so close to Ginny's, "how long I've been wanting to do that."

"Actually, you know, I think I have a pretty good idea," she smiled, closing the gap between them once more.

It hadn't been easy, getting to this point. They had been apart for months, and then the battle, and then…. the grief, the mourning, the funerals, the figuring-out-how-to-live-now-that-everything-was-different. It was a lot. At times, it was too much. But they were managing. They were all managing.

And now. Now. Three months since they had first seen each other after being apart. Fifteen weeks. One hundred and five days. And finally, finally, here they were. Intertwined, the late summer sun setting behind them, a good distance away from The Burrow, secluded behind the trunk of the largest tree. It had started out as an innocent walk - just like the many others they'd had in the past fifteen weeks. Sometimes their walks were full of conversation - light and heavy - and other times they were completely silent, but that was okay. Sometimes their hands would brush against each other. Sometimes one of them would grab hold. Today, they had walked, their usual route - and Ginny wondered briefly when it became their usual route - and their hands brushed and Harry held on and they were silent until they reached the tree and Ginny stopped and she looked at him and he was already looking at her and Ginny certainly wasn't imagining that look in Harry's eyes - the one she'd seen plenty of that spring that they were together. And then he asked her:

"Can I kiss you?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation.

And he kissed her. And kissed her. And kissed her.

And it didn't matter that there had been a war and that her family had been in the thick of it and that she had lost a brother and that her mother was still eerily silent most days and that her other brother was struggling hard and that she still had nightmares and was too afraid to sleep most nights and that everything was different and nothing would ever be the same. It didn't matter because she was in Harry's arms. He was here and she was the closest she had felt to safe in ages.

"Thank you," she said when they broke apart, their foreheads still pressed together.

"For what?" he asked, sounding confused.

"For being here."

Here. With her. For her.

Here. In that moment.

Here.

Alive.