Erased
Harry/Ginny, Romance/Drama, Rated M for explicit language
Amnesia AU
PROLOGUE
Thursday
Dec 27, 2001
Ginny should have known that the day she crossed paths with Harry again, her world would turn completely on its head. Maybe if she'd known it was coming, if she'd been mentally prepared, then this mystifying run-in wouldn't have revealed her to be such a madwoman.
As it was, he had just thrown her out of a pub, so there was that.
"What are you doing here? What did you see?" he said, running an aggravated hand through his already mussed hair as his eyes swept up and down the busy street.
Harry's other hand was still clasped tightly around her arm. She wrenched herself from his grip, and finally, he turned to look at her.
"Nice to see you, too," she said, unable to suppress the sarcasm lacing her tongue. She tucked her gloved hands into the crooks of her elbows—bloody hell it was cold out here—and glared up at him. "What's it been? Eight years now? Proper greeting, that."
Harry dropped his hand from his hair to rub the back of his neck. "Right. Sorry. I- how are you?"
"I was fine a second ago," she said, and momentarily glanced up at the sign above them. "But then you kicked me out of the Leaky Cauldron. And here I was hoping to thaw out my miserable, frozen heart."
Her "miserable, frozen heart" (deemed so in the last letter she'd received from her brother Bill when she'd decided to forgo Christmas at the Burrow for the third consecutive year) was also ballooning at the sight of Harry, filling up her chest and reminding her of things she'd rather not think of. She had to cut this short, move on with her life as she'd been doing just minutes previous. Harry, as beautiful as she remembered, all wild hair and radiant green eyes, was forcing her brain to extract too many repressed feelings, far too quickly.
He gave her a quizzical look, then said, bless him, "Er, it's closed."
"Closed?" Ginny said skeptically. She'd barely gotten to glance around, and there had been an awful lot of lurid purple smoke lingering in the air, but the general din she'd been immersed in was enough to dismiss his lie. "It sounded to me like the pub was packed. And why else would the door be open, anyway?"
"It's-we're having a meeting," he explained after a brief pause. "No outsiders allowed. Sorry."
As he fidgeted under her hard stare, Ginny came to notice what he was wearing; scarlet robes with three buckles stretched over his chest, heavily scuffed working boots, and a thick, black cloak. What the hell kind of meeting was he going to in such a garb? Harry looked as if he'd just walked out of a sci-fi novel.
And it dawned on her. "Oh my god."
She burst into unrestrained laughter. It would prove her theory correct as to whyhe'd pulled her out of that pub borderline frantic and terrified. Of course, of course, he'd have such a ridiculous hobby. Blimey, what a perfect fool.
"Please tell me Ron's in there," she said through her hysterics. "Please tell me he role-plays, too."
Harry blinked owlishly, and she doubled-over, unable to contain herself.
"Ron's running an errand with Hermione," Harry said when Ginny managed to suppress her laughter into giggles and stand up straight to face him again. "I dunno what you mean by role-play, though."
"Good one," she said, waving away his mock-confusion. "Star Wars, right?"
Harry gaped at her like a fish out of water, eyebrows knitted together. He held up his hand, surely to argue this hilarious revelation she'd come to.
"Look," she went on, hoping to mollify him, "you don't have to lie to me. It's nothing to be ashamed of. LARPing seems like fun! And your costume is really well done. I like that you went with red. You're like a standout Jedi."
There was a beat of silence, a car rushing past. The bottom of Harry's cloak flapped with the burst of air.
He slowly began to nod. "Yeah, yeah, uh, thanks."
"Can I really not go in?" she said, stomping her feet to get some feeling back into them. "It's freezing out here."
Harry jerked as if physically assaulted and whipped off his cloak in one sure motion. He draped it over her shoulders without preamble, and when she started to protest, he said, "No, don't. It's all right. I brought you out here. Are you… er, do you want lunch?"
Ginny tried not to sound tongue-tied as the heat of his cloak and the smell of him washed over her. She tugged the cloak more firmly around herself. It was so long that the hem pooled over her feet, and she hitched it up, not wanting to get it filthy.
"Well, yes, but… the other Jedis- Jedi? They're waiting for you, aren't they?"
"It's fine. They can get on without me."
The remnants of her eleven year old self began to cheer before Ginny could stuff her back into the deepest recess of her mind, and she strained to push away the swift elation that gushed into her chest. But then Harry smiled at her, and she was bowled right the fuck over.
"Okay," she said.
.
.
.
.
