title: salubrious
pairing: [eventual] harry/ginny
an: two months later... as per usual. I'll try to be better, those of you who have found this or are reading it. any words are appreciated- reviews are my life source.
dedication: to the lovely Scarlett Ribbon, who inspired this next segment to be written with her amazing review. thank you so much for those words- they reminded me 1) that I had started this 100sit, and 2) that I'm capable of writing something better than passable. This one's for you.
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salubrious
Harry dresses quickly and quietly—it seems that this, this quickly, quietly, quickly quietly will be yet another reoccurring theme—, hoping to avoid waking Ron and Hermione. He tells himself that he does this because they deserve their rest, and they do. He just can't ignore that guilty, shameful twinge that whispers phrases such as avoidance, and such a coward.
His head hangs slightly as he exits the room.
He has made his way down the staircase and to the common room, stopping as his vision catches on familiar furniture and a crackling fire. The Gryffindor common room appears virtually untouched by the war, and it is disconcerting. He sees his familiar arm chair, and wonders who, if anyone, filled its vacancy for the past year.
Harry is surprised that cots haven't been set up in this safe, unharmed, open space. He feels selfish, that he slept so well in a plush bed nestled in a relatively empty dormitory while the other occupants of the castle, most of who had done much more fighting than himself in that final battle, denied themselves the comfort of a familiar place.
Did they avoid the tower out of some sort of respect, giving them the distance and space they need in turn for the long trek they made for the past year?
Harry doesn't think he will ever be able to accept how people view the things he has done. The gratitude, the reverent respect… He doesn't deserve it, and he knows this.
Even though the absence of persons in the common room and dormitory is a great relief, Harry feels those damn twinges again.
He shakes his head, and finds the urge to keep moving, keep moving. He's been moving non-stop for the past year. Don't stay in the same place for too long, people will find you.
Harry is out the portrait hole before he can realize it, and he too suddenly wonders where he is even going. He supposes he is hungry, and so spurs his decision to visit the kitchen as opposed to the Great Hall. He makes himself think that this is because he is not even sure if the tables would still serve food this early in the morning against the patchwork ceiling and heaps of rubble.
The sun has just fully emerged from behind the horizon, and the corridors are filled with a combination of a soft half light of the pink of dawn and the warm glow of the candles. Harry pads, quietly, down an autopilot route. It is as if he's walking through a dream world, in the fuzzy soft lights, and he is not attached to his body.
The thought startles him to awareness, and he is caught off guard when he realizes the slight weight on his head and the brush against his arms.
He had concealed himself in his invisibility cloak, instinctively, and it unsettles him.
The portraits are not looking at him though, nor the potential passerby, and although he hears the whispers of those god forsaken twinges, he leaves it on.
Humans have entered the hall now, perhaps making their way down to the Great Hall, a habitual path that alums and students alike may find comfort in. There are only a few in the passageways he passes, but those that are walk in groups, no stragglers.
Harry deftly avoids them, quickly, quietly, ghosting around them like the phantom to this world he is.
Single-mindedly dedicated to his task, the sudden vision that appears as he turns a corner sends his stomach in knots. He stops, mouth slightly open in a halted gasp.
She walks with a pride he has always recognized. Her face is a bit too pale, freckles standing out a bit too much, and the haunt around her eyes troubles him, but still she walks with echoes of unbounded determination and fire. Her red hair turns glorious in that mesmerizing soft candle-dawn light.
She walks alone.
For a second he swears she can see him, that she locked eyes with him as she neared. But her brown eyes wander again, and it could only have been random.
There is an itch in his hand, a small jump in movement that nears grasping the cloak. She passes him, his heart pounding, pleading to reach out, but her steps continue behind him.
He closes his eyes in something like resolve and slips off the cloak—quickly, quietly—and turns to face her.
He opens his mouth to say something, but he is too late.
The strands of red disappear around the corner and he is left, invisible.