A/N: I'm giving the wizarding world a form of a Quinceanera. If you know how important that is in Mexican culture (and other Latino nations) this will not seem so strange.

"You can say what you mean, but it won't change a thing

I'm sick of the secrets…

Stood on the edge, tied to a noose

You came along, and you cut me loose…"

-Coldplay

Coming Back

Harry's first, foolish thought was a beautiful heliopath, that fire guardian that Luna thought Cornelius Fudge owned. However, it was the colors, which seemed to be changing. Harry couldn't understand what was going on.

Ginny's hair was straight and sleek, half down her back and half flowing down over her right shoulder blade and down her front. Molly had magically applied makeup. Or was she? Harry had only seen her wear it once or twice. It wasn't a lot, though, because to be honest, she didn't need it, but whatever her mother did had definitely made an impression.

Harry had no idea he was fumbling with the rings in his pocket, and Ginny's gift.

Her dress appeared to be changing color as she walked. It went from a moonlit yellow, to pale gold, and finally to a deep, piercing burnt orange color that almost perfectly matched her hair. Harry thought he was dreaming. The thin straps faded imperceptibly into her skin, and the dress flowed effortlessly over her body, accentuating the good, covering everything, and stopping right above her ankles, showing off beautiful strapped, high-heels. The entire ensemble had taken a short, tomboyish girl and made her into an elegant, stunning woman: the Fiery Daughter.

As she walked, it seemed to Harry, she was glowing. He could only describe her as radiant and powerful, yet altogether serene and heavenly.

"Harry, your jaw." Ron whispered in his ears. Harry had forgotten that there were other people in the room. After swallowing difficultly, shaking his head a little, and suppressing a grin, he turned with the rest of the family and headed outside. Before they got to the table, a wizard Apparated at their side, wearing a bag and holding a camera.

"Photos! Photos!"

Harry didn't know what he was supposed to do, so he just stood off to the side. He was glad to see that he was doing the right thing. This was obviously a family affair. After several pictures of Ginny standing alone, next to a tree, down by the lake, sitting spread out on the lawn, she and the photographer joined her parents for several more pictures of just the three of them. The process repeated with just Molly and Ginny, then Arthur and Ginny, then Ginny and each of her brothers separately, then the family all together. The whole process took forever, and he even took pictures of Ginny and Hermione together; Harry started to feel very lonely.

He didn't have a family. He was alone. He didn't want to be here. He wanted to see James and Lily.

He wasn't angry or disappointed not to be asked to be in the photos, but he wished that he could have been posing next to his grown-up sister, then with her and his parents, while his sister had a smile on her face to rival Ginny's right now. He took a seat on one of the chairs that had been setup around the lunch table, clasped his hands together, resting his forearms on his knees, and staring at the ground. He vaguely thought that a gnome hole had been below him, years and years ago.

"And do we have an escort this afternoon?" The photographer asked.

"Well…" Harry, still comparing blades of grass, heard Molly's questioning voice angle in his direction. Slowly, he lifted and turned his head to face the source of the sound to see the entire party staring at him.

"What?" Harry was honestly asking the question.

"Oh, Harry, dear, come here." Molly rushed over, grabbed his arm, and led him towards Ginny. He started to pray that he wouldn't trip. "Here you are, sir. Where would you like to do the photos?"

"Mmm." He began to revolve on the spot, quickly scouting possible locations before turning back to Mrs. Weasley and saying, "I believe I have an idea. The sunlight is casting fascinating shadows through that tree down there by the pond."

"Lake." Ron sputtered.

"Excuse me, son?" The photographer asked.

"Nothing." Hermione had just given Ron a sharp shot to the ribcage and answered for him.

"Very well, if you two would follow me." Harry started walking, but looked back over his shoulder to notice that the family was staying perfectly still. In fact, as he worked to keep up with the excited Ginny, he saw that the Weasleys were now retreating back into the house.

"Why are they–?" Ginny cut him off.

"Tradition, Harry." She said, still looking at their destination. "All you have to do is stand there and look handsome. Do you think you can fake it?"

She smiled. Harry melted. He had no idea how long the pictures took. He didn't know how many were taken. He didn't know how he was being asked to pose. He thought time was standing still. She had hooked her arm into his, stared up at him, and smiled. That one moment lasted in Harry's mind for, as he would find out later from Ron, almost thirty minutes while the photographer did his work.

After Harry somehow walked back to the house, gathered the family, and went back outside to sit down for the lunch that Molly was done preparing, they all sat down, and Harry's world came back into focus. "Thank you for cooking, Molly, again."

"You're so very welcome, Harry. You're too kind to mention anything. Thank you for agreeing to be Ginny's escort for this."

"Oh, it wasn't a problem at all." He assumed it wasn't. He didn't really remember any of it. After animated conversation and four courses, Harry had put his utensils down, and Ginny had found his hand under the table.

The ambiguity of their relationship starting eating away at Harry.

The upcoming year held nothing daunting for him. His classes and N.E.W.T.'s were going to be difficult, but not strenuous. He had done enough practically, and studied enough for seven years that they would not pose a problem. He wasn't taking any classes with Trelawney, Binns, or Snape, so his marks would do nothing but improve. He had already decided that he would not be submitting his name for the TriWizard Tournament, and he had all but decided not to play Quidditch this year either. There was no threat from Voldemort, and for the most part, his friends were still all around him.

However, he decided to live in the moment, just this once. After lunch, Ron and Hermione left to go back on their hunts for jobs and houses. Bill, Charlie, and Percy all went back to work, and George left to meet up with Lee Jordan to discuss business and the possible reopening of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes within the month (apparently they wanted Hogwarts students to be able to stop by before school started).

"You wanna go for a walk?" Harry asked Ginny.

"Yeah." They left her parents in the living room, awaiting the arrival of Ted Lupin from Hogwarts. Harry and Ginny had discarded their shoes, making her a good head shorter than Harry again, but still looking breathtaking. "I ate too much. I zink I will not feet into my robes!" Her imitation of Fleur put Harry in stitches. They laughed about some of the people they had met in their travels: from her own brother Ron, to Lockhart and Trelawney, to Fleur and Krum. "Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to sit down at the tree? I mean, I can't believe the photographer picked that spot, and I don't want it stop being special. I mean, not special, but –"

"I know, Gin. It is special, and that just made it more so."

"Thanks, Harry." They arrived at their destination and sat down like they always did. Harry put his back against the trunk while she sat beside him, resting her arm on his leg and her head in his chest. Harry dug around in his pockets and found her gift. He didn't pull it out, though. He was beginning to have the same fears of accepting her gift. Gryffindor courage, however, took over.

"Here you go, Gin." He handed her the small package, and she opened it quickly, flicking her wand so that the wrapping paper went flying. "Already using magic, huh?"

"Of course." She said with a mischievous grin. "Oh, Harry."

When she slid the top off the box, she saw what was sitting inside. Harry had gotten her an ornate pendant on the end of a simple silver chain. The pendant was in the shape of an upside down triangle. The border was polished silver with three tiny diamonds at each corner. In the middle was a triangular cut ruby. "I didn't want to taint the gift at all, but it basically contains tons of enchantments, both from the store and from my own making."

"What kinds of enchantments?" She asked, though Harry thought he could hear getting choked up.

"Well, er, it's not that I don't trust you or anything, but they all have something to do with safety."

"Oh, I know, Harry!" She rotated across his body and hugged him. They stayed like that until Harry felt his shoulder becoming slightly damp.

"Gin?" She pulled away, and he could see the remnants of tears. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Today has been so perfect, and it just got better, and I don't know what to think anymore!"

Harry's heart broke. "I'm sorry, Gin. I didn't mean to –"

"Shut up, Harry."

"What?"

"Shut up. Don't speak. Be quiet."

"Ok."

She righted herself and placed her face eye-level with his, only a foot apart. "You know that I love you, right?"

She had never said that to him. It didn't faze him, though. "I love you, too, Gin." It rolled off his tongue without any hesitation or hindrance.

"Then why aren't we together?" Her crying had completely stopped. She was completely serious, yet caring at the same time.

All of his thoughts that he had been wrestling with came to the forefront at this point. He remembered the walk to the forest. How could he explain it to her? It would break his heart, spirit, mind, and soul to admit to her that he had walked right passed her. "I just won't be able to be tell you everything. I'm pretty sure that trust, honesty, openness, and all of that stuff is the most important thing…right?" He wanted her to agree with him so badly.

"You're absolutely right, Harry." Thank Merlin! "That is completely correct in any normal relationship." Wait a second… "If you think that anyone else in the history of the wizarding world has a past like we do, then you're crazy!"

He smiled.

"I love you. You love me. It was no accident that you met my family when you needed help to get on the train. It was no accident that you saved my life the next year. It was no accident that I joined the D.A."

He smiled again, but it was mingled with sadness as he put his head down a bit.

"It was no accident that we were both possessed by Voldemort." She paused. "I also think, and I might be wrong, that something put me at the edge of that forest as you walked by in your cloak." Her eyes tried to get his to meet hers. Finally, Harry found her eyes, and they looked hungry for his validation. He nodded. "I knew it! You walked right past me. You walked, alone, to face Voldemort."

"Gin."

"No, stop. You don't have to tell me why or what or how you got out of that forest alive. I'm sure you had to see or experience things that the rest of us can only imagine in our nightmares. Just tell me why you walked past me." She paused again. "Please."

"I had accepted death." It sounded worse when he said it. "I wanted more than anything to reveal myself. I hoped that you would keep me from doing what I was about to do."

"I definitely would have stopped you!" The tears were beginning to build again in her eyes.

"We wouldn't be sitting here now if you had."

"What does that mean, Harry? I know you can't talk about it, but please! Please talk to me."

"You won't love me anymore if I do. I made a decision to leave you, Ron, Hermione, and everyone else. How can you trust me after that?"

"BECAUSE HE'S GONE!! You will never have to make that decision ever again!" Her hands were carefully on his shoulders. Her eyes were boring into his. He could feel her inside his mind. It wasn't Legillimency, it was need. He understood what she was trying to say. He saw where the conversation was going to end. He had already made up his mind that they would not leave this tree without holding hands at the very least. He wanted to be with her all the time. He needed to be with her all the time.

"I know."

"Ok. So if you never have to feel that way again, would you ever leave me?"

Wow. "Obviously not."

She took a deep breath. "Then why aren't we together?"

"I don't know. I guess I just thought you will leave me whenever you find out about all the things I had to do between Bill's wedding and Voldemort's fall."

"Look at me. No, really look at me. Harry." He looked into her eyes, drowning in the color brown. "I hope you will tell me someday about all those things. If you don't, I will completely understand."

"What?"

"I don't know how you became the person you are. We've only heard rumors about how you grew up with the Dursleys, and I'm pretty sure no one knows how bad your life was there! Ron and Hermione can't even talk about the things you've told them about your life! They weren't even there half the time! I don't even know what happened in the Chamber!" Her voice was raised, but not in anger. "They don't know what Quirrel was like! They don't know what the tournament and graveyard were like! They don't know what fighting Voldemort is like! No one living does! From what you've told me, you basically tried to commit –" she faltered, "suicide to save your friends! There's only one person we know that did that! Your mum!"

The last two words broke him. He looked down at the ground and felt a single tear begin trailing down his face. He felt her hand on his cheek and her thumb tracing the tear back up to his eye. She pulled his face up, they looked at each other and very slowly, very softly, they kissed.

There was no tongue, their lips didn't move, and it became very wet. They broke apart after a bit and cried into each other. Harry could feel his entire life, as Ginny had just summed it up, flowing out of him. Her entire life was flowing right back. The two of them, destined to be together since a day on a platform seven years ago, shared themselves. She brought him back from the edge he had been skirting his whole life. She had always been on the edge with him, trying to grasp him, trying to bring him back.

It was incredibly sad and incredibly joyful at the same time. It was pure. It was perfect.

It was love.