Until Nineteen Years Later
By Sammy92
A/N: Thank-you very much to those of you who took your time to review my first ever chapter of fanfic – you were very supportive and have encouraged me to update sooner.
Disclamer: No Copyright Infringement Intended. JK is the imaginative owner of everything. I am merely a loser who borrows the world that she created.
Care and Concern
He didn't know how many minutes, hours or days later, but after a while Harry woke up. Fixing his glasses, he blinked his eyes and looked around. The room was different from how it had been when he had collapsed in a heap onto his bed: it was darker, and people had joined him. Most of the young men in the other beds had red hair. Harry sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, as the realisation of everything cascaded down upon him. Part of him wanted to stay in the bed forever, but there was so much to do and, more importantly, so much to stay. Fairly abruptly, he stood up, deciding to get out of this room. Realising that he ached all over he paused at the doorway to look back. Though the only sound was that of breathing, Harry suspected that he wasn't the only person in the room awake. Nevertheless he descended the staircase of the boy's dormitory.
As he approached the common room, Harry wandered if this was the right thing to do. There were a few whose presence he craved, but the last thing he wanted was to be bombarded by a hoard of journalists. When he reached the bottom of the staircase he noticed that there was just one person sat in the common room. His stomach did a back-flip when he realised that this person had a mane of long red hair.
Ginny Weasley was sat on one of the sofas, her legs pulled up to her chest. She sat in a foetal-like position, gazing absent-mindedly at the dying embers of the fire. Trying to search for that Gryffindor courage, Harry slowly made his way over to her. In response, she turned her head. Her expression was unreadable, but he could tell that she had been crying.
Harry mentally kicked himself. All he wanted to do was hold her and tell her how much she meant to him, but why should she be interested in him anymore? They weren't going out any after he ended the relationship, and they hadn't spoken (apart from a few words during the battle) for, what, nine months? And of course, she'd lost a brother. Though he'd lost many people, Harry couldn't in living memory remember losing such as close relative. Despite this, Ginny bit her lip slightly before saying, very simply:
"Harry."
Harry took this as an indicator that he was allowed to go and sit next to her, so he walked over and sat down. Her gaze didn't waver from him. When he had sat down, Ginny collapsed against him, her face buried in him chest. A small part of him wished he'd thought to have a shower first. They stayed like that for several minutes, arms wrapped around each other. It was awfully strange, being back on this sofa in the common room, and amongst everything else, Harry could smell the flowery-scent that he had gone so long without. In a small way, it felt as though they had never been apart.
When they broke apart, Ginny looked up at him.
"Harry, you're such a state," she half-laughed. In contrast, she seemed to have had a shower and been patched up. Harry imagined the scenes where Mrs Weasley had ordered Ginny to get herself sorted out.
"Yeah… sorry about that," he said slowly, "I promise to get myself cleaned up soon. So… what time is it exactly?"
Ginny shrugged. "No idea, but we must be into the small hours of the night. "Mum would have chained us all to our beds if she could, but I just couldn't sleep."
"I know," Harry said as he placed one arm around her and held her tight, "I'm sorry, Gin."
"What have you got to be sorry for?" she shrugged. If it wasn't for you we'd still have been in this mess. You did it, Harry."
"I know, but there are still a million things to be sorry for. If I'd have done some things differently… he… it might not have happened." He was wary of broaching the subject of Fred, but it was going to happen some time. Fred's death would surely hit Ginny hard: she had always been so close to the twins. Whichever genes the twins had inherited that made them so talented at pranks, Ginny had inherited too.
Ginny pulled away from Harry, almost glaring up at him. "Harry… please don't beat yourself up for everything, because if you do it's going to drive me nuts. Although there's so much I want to know I'm really not angry at you."
"And, Ginny, I'm not just sorry about everything last night. I'm sorry about… you know…"
"I know, Harry. I really do understand, I really do. It's just…" She stammered, closing her eyes in an attempt to hold back the next stream of tears.
"Honestly Ginny, it's OK to cry. After everything, nobody's going to blame you. It's best to let it out."
And she did.
"It's just that I've never felt so much before, or been so confused about how I should be feeling. Of course I'm upset about Fred's death, but although I don't know how I'm going to cope, I'm just so worried about how our family's going to cope. Especially George… how is he ever going to survive? I can't bear to look at him, Harry, because he and Fred were never, lifeless. There's no George without Fred. And what about Remus? And Tonks? And poor Teddy? And I feel guilty for being so upset when other people have lost more than me, and I feel guilty for sitting here, feeling sorry for myself in front of you, Harry Potter. But also Harry, I'm just so amazed to be right here with you now, after all this time, because I've missed you so much. I just want to know everything, and what the situation is between us. And Harry, I'm really not annoyed, but if I'm honest I can't help feeling a little bit annoyed that at the first chance you got you went off with Ron and Hermione, after months of being with them. But I am annoyed at you Harry, for making me think you were dead, because when I saw Hagrid carrying you, I really didn't know if I could go on."
And then Ginny collapsed onto him again. Harry was trying to remember her, racking his mind for something her could do to make it clear better. He supposed that he needed to tell her how he felt, as well as giving her a hundred explanations. He did this when her crying subsided.
"Look Ginny, I understand all of it, I really do. There's so much I need to tell you, and when you know everything you'll understand why I just had to do something with Ron and Hermione. But trust me, right now there's nothing I'd rather do than be with you. And, for the record, I really had no choice other than to go to my death, and then when I "came back from the dead" I had no choice but to feign being dead. When I went down to the forest I saw you with another girl…"
"Wait – you were there and you didn't even say goodbye," she asked, the fiery Ginny very much back.
"I'm sorry, but it really did tear my heart into pieces to go on. Then, when I got to the forest, the last thing I thought of before he "killed" me was you… you kissing me."
Ginny's anger suddenly seemed to have melted. She looked at him in the eyes, evidently surprised.
"So you said that you weren't sure what was happening between us. That's really up to you; because I honestly want nothing more than to be with you now, now that I can be with you. I can't believe I'm admitting this to you, but I used to watch your dot on the Marauder's Map to check that you were OK? I'm serious Ginny, I don't feel any differently from how I did on your birthday, only I've missed you so much you really can't imagine."
Ginny gave a smile. "Oh, I think I can," she said, before she closed the gap between their lips. Harry closed his eyes, and held her. Both of them kissed more passionately than they ever had before, feeling that they needed to make up for the best part of a year without each other. This kiss had to be better even than his birthday present, Harry thought, because this time it didn't have to end when their lips parted. Now there was no Voldemort standing in their way. As Ginny leant back, she moved something from beneath her and Harry fell on top of her. A minute or two later, when they broke apart, Harry thought that the smile on his face must be as silly as the one on hers.
"Well, that was lovely," Ginny said after a moment's silence. "So, I think you've got a few things to fill me in on.
"I think you've got to fill me in on your year too," he replied.
And so they spent quite a long time talking. Harry tried to tell her everything he could. He explained about what Horcruxes were, and the search for them, including what had happened when they apparated way from the wedding, about Grimmauld Place, the Ministry of Magic, and everything a tiny bit interesting about their life as campers. This included him mentioning Ron's departure ("What? Where is that git?" Ginny asked angrily when he told her this), his and Hermione's visit to Godric's Hollow and their discovery of the Deathly Hallows. He then went on to explain about Malfoy Manor, and their plans and success in breaking into Gringotts. That led him into his recount of everything that had happened in that long night just hours ago. Ginny had heard bits of the story, but she seemed happy that Harry trusted her with all of this information.
In turn, Ginny told him everything about her year, which seemed to have more horrific tales than Harry's, as she explained about what happened after the wedding. She then went on to describe how awful Hogwarts had been, and the ways in which all of the students had been terrorised (Harry considered going there and then to the Ravenclaw Tower to see if the Carrows were still them for him to hurt further.) She described how she felt for silly for rebelling against Snape's regime, when all she had been doing was trying to help. Then, she didn't have much to say about the final month or so, when their life had been incredibly boring (as well as scary) at Auntie Muriel's house.
A few times during their talk, somebody walked through the common room. None of these people were particularly close to the couple, but all who saw the pair was sensitive to realise that they were having an overdue, very private conversation.
When the Sun streamed in through one of the windows, Ginny gave a yawn.
"I think someone needs to get some sleep," Harry said with half a laugh.
"And someone needs to have a shower," she replied. "I think Mum has brought you some clothes and put them in your dormitory. And Harry, please visit the hospital wing too."
"Will do, love," he said, and they shared a chaste kissed with her before she ran up one of the staircases.
Harry watched her, and then headed up towards the showers. He stood in there for many minutes, the water stinging and soothing him in one motion. Then suddenly, a thought occurred to him, and he felt ridiculously stupid. He'd completely forgotten about the Elder Wand. He quickly turned the shower off and jumped out, almost forgetting to grab a towel. Searching through his clothes, he only managed to find his own holly and phoenix feather wand. Hoping he didn't meet anyone along the way, he crept up to the dormitory in his towel, and did a quick search around his bed, wary that, although nobody spoke to him, he was sure that there were people watching him. But he couldn't find the wand. He cursed himself for not being more careful with it.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed it – a tiny cliffhanger there for you. The next chapter will have some more Harry-Ginny-ness but other chapters too. Reviews make me happy! Love Sam.