Dinner out


Harry sat across from Ginny, his mind a muddle of what-ifs. She was stunningly beautiful tonight, not that he hadn't thought of her as love interest before, but tonight there was a sparkle in her eye, a quickness to her smile, a sense of the genuine in her laugh that made him feel unsure of himself.

After Voldemort, Harry had spent weeks with the Weasley clan helping to rebuild the Burrow. Fred's wake had been particularly difficult; in the depth of their grief they all shared their stories, memories of the son, the friend, the twin, and the brother. Such tangible grieving had haunted him for a while. Then Ron and Hermione had decided to get married and had moved off to the states to settle although they never explained why to Harry's satisfaction. Harry on the other hand was bound to Britain. There were just too many things that he owed to the old Kingdom, a debt he counted in lives spent while Harry had tried inadequately to stop Voldemort. His country counted him hero, but in his heart he did not feel like one.

The wizarding population of Britain is the greatest in the world, is how the ministry liked to describe itself. Now that Harry was a part of the ministry he knew what that really meant. Population fourteen thousand witches and wizards worldwide, two thirds in the U.K. And there were a little over four thousand fewer now than there had been before the war started. The damage was brutal; fully a third of all magical Britain had been destroyed by the plague that was Voldemort.

After burying Fred it was hard for Harry to be around Molly. She loved him, and even smiled at him, but the depth of her sadness was painful for Harry, especially when he knew that it was entirely his fault. It was his fault for not acting soon enough. It was his fault for not finding a way to stop the slaughter.

So he left, and buried himself in his work. The work of tracking down every last Death Eater and compiling the evidence needed to convict. And the work of coaxing the DMLE to prosecute. In the Aurors offices Harry was widely acknowledged as a one man brigade.

"In four years I've hunted down fifty-two Death Eaters, given the war crimes commission ample evidence to convict every one of them," Harry paused. Ginny had asked him how he had been doing, but he knew he was going over the top. She doesn't want to hear about this, he decided, but neither did he know what else to talk about. "I'm sorry, I am boring you."

"No," said Ginny, "it is very interesting."

Ginny was looking a bit like she had an upset stomach, Harry thought. Why must I always bring everything back to Voldemort? "Well, even so, I'd rather hear about you. My life hasn't had much balance ever, and the last four years underscore that trend. Tell me something beautiful, Ginevra."

Ginny's pulse quickened. Had he ever used her full name before? "I..." what was she going to say? 'I love you, I need you, don't hide yourself away from me', it was on the tip of her tongue racing through her mind in circles but she couldn't make herself say it.

"I'll tell you about Crocinda Vernus then. She is a vivacious ten year old that I found at her family's farm on Skye. Her mother is a cousin of Charity Burbage. Um, a squib actually. Do you remember Charity from Hogwarts? She taught muggle studies I think..."

"Her father was Irma Pince's son Lathyrus. As wizards go Lathyrus' power was... very limited, but I'm going off topic. Anyway, Crocinda's father Lathyrus was killed during the war and her mother got dragged off by, um... Voldemort's forces, to somewhere in... Well I found her in Egypt actually."

Ginny paused for a breath. "I'm sorry Harry, I'm really not telling this well. At the time I had just started working at the Ministry and was part of the census staff."

Harry smiled encouragingly.

"So I had a description of an apparition point on the farm but wasn't able to use it because the area had changed too much from the description for me to visualize my destination accurately. I ended up collecting information on half a dozen farmsteads to investigate on foot, so to speak, and the Vernus farm was the last on that list. It would be too sad to have to describe the others, so I'll skip over them if you don't mind. On the last stop I found what at first seemed to be more of the same. Their house was destroyed and much of the farmland burned, but surprisingly the fire had skipped over their barn. And there inside, I found Crocinda.

"She had her father's wand," Ginny laughed softly at the memory. "and she even tried to hex me when I landed. I'm afraid I stunned her on autopilot after that; you know after all that practice we did in the DA it is reflex as much as intention."

"When I went to investigate who had attacked me I found a slip of a girl. At the time I thought she was maybe seven or eight, though I learned later that she was actually ten. Still even at ten I'd have been impressed that she'd managed to cast the hex, well formed as it was. I set about creating a calming ward, and then revived her, and the moment after I revived her she was on her feet again and I think she would have hexed me again had I not taken her wand from her little hands."

"It took two days before she really trusted me to move out of her line of sight, so I sat with her and I talked, and told her stories. I talked about home mostly, but some about the war. I told her some of the bedtime stories that mother used to tell us to send us into sleep. And eventually we became friends. Oh, Harry, you wouldn't believe how beautiful she is," Ginny paused to collect herself before she teared up. "She showed me how she had survived the previous year without her parents. At night she slept in the sheep pens to stay warm; by day she led them down to the seaside where they ate kelp, returning to the barn before nightfall even in the short winter days on Skye. For the most part all she had to eat was sheep's milk, of which I gather she was heart tired, but in the summer there were some root vegetables that came up where her mother's garden had been. She had a little hoard of parsnips and beets hidden away out of reach of the animals.

"As our friendship grew she also confided in me her story of how her father had been killed and her mother abducted. So when I got back to London I requested a transfer to the missing persons bureau, and a few weeks later I managed to find her mother using a homing charm and a locket she had given the girl that contained a lock of hair inside that belonged to her mother. It hasn't always been that easy of course, but that is still what I live for, to reunited children with their own parents. I wish..."

"Well, ..." Ginny was tearing up now, "when I reunited Crocinda with Helena they both broke down in tears. I can't describe it."

"Harry, do you remember Fred's wake?"

Harry nodded uncomfortably.

"It was like that, awash in a flood of emotion. Sadness for what was lost, happiness for what was found; nothing I can say can really describe it." Ginny looked at Harry and realized that she'd said something that upset him, but couldn't tell where it had gone wrong. "Harry, are you okay?"

"I'd better go, I have a lot of work to do in the morning" said Harry. And only a little stiffly, "It has been wonderful seeing you Ginny, we should do it more often." Harry lifted his hand and signaled the waiter. "Bring anything the lady would like, you can add it to my account."

And only a minute later Harry was gone. Anger and remorse filled Ginny's mind as salt tears trickled down her cheeks.


An hour later Ginny was still walking darkened streets in downtown London wondering what in the world had come over Harry to behave like that. The thoughts raced back and forth. "He must hate me. Why can't I understand him? I should hate the bastard for leaving like that. Why do I have to love him?" In anguish she sat on a public bench trying to bring her thoughts into some sort of sense.

"He was hurting I think, just like Crocinda, and somehow I managed to put my foot in it. But how do I get him to stick around long enough to trust me? Long enough to heal? Do I dare make him? Will that just push him away?"


Ginny resumed walking aimlessly until she found to herself at the public entrance to the Ministry of Magic. Before she could talk herself out of it she formed her plan.

"Hi...," reading the name tag Ginny continued "Jeanne. I'm Ginevra Weasley, with the department of missing persons, and I'm looking for an Auror. Can you provide me his current address?"

Jeanne glanced at the ID, then at the request and raised her eyebrows. "Is this personal or ministry business", she asked. Her voice had a nasal quality that put Ginny on edge but she gave her a friendly smile and lied through her teeth. "Ministry business."

"Okay Ginevra. Wait a moment while I get his address from the files."

Minutes later Ginny was back outside the ministry and within half an hour she was standing outside Harry's door. "Oh Merlin, this is the stupidest thing you've ever done," Ginny was berating herself. She poised to knock on the door, but couldn't bear to move her hand and so stood there like a statue for a good two minutes when to her surprise the door opened in front of her.

"Hi Ginny," said Harry. "You may as well come in. I can't sleep either."

"Wait!" Her voice came out a croak, her heart was in her throat. Before she could lose her nerve she stepped into Harry, and reaching up behind his neck and pulled him into a kiss. It wasn't soft and sweet as she had planned, it was desperate and needy and she figured that if anything would drive him away that would.

But to her surprise he responded in kind. Pulling her into his arms so forcefully that she couldn't breathe for a moment then releasing but holding their mouths close. Ginny felt Harry's tongue play over her lips and she met him, tasting his mouth, letting him taste hers.

Harry shuddered and his knees buckled. "What is it my love," Ginny asked without pause for consideration.

"You can't imagine," he started. Ginny took his face in her hands and whispered. "Tell me".

"You can't imagine how lonely I have been Ginny. After Fred died, ..." his face wrenched in anguish. "After Fred, I knew I didn't deserve you. Not any of you. It was so awful being there and knowing that it was my fault that you, and George, and Molly..."

Ginny held Harry to her, for the first time she had an inkling of just how much the war had cost Harry. Not just his parents, but his confidence that he was, that he could be wanted, needed, loved. Ginny pressed lightly on Harry's shoulders lowering him to the floor to sit cross legged, then she sat in his lap and wrapped her legs and arms around him an held him close for a long while.