A/N: Reading the reviews for chapter ten sent me on a high (however, the buzz might also have something to do with my weird new addiction to ginger beer) so I immediately sat down and started with the final chapter of my first Fan Fiction sigh. As much as I have enjoyed writing the angst fest I like to call a story it is time to say goodbye…Hope you have gotten as much out of reading it as I definitely have had writing it and tell me if you like the last chapter, or will you all be crying out for alternative endings??

Disclaimer: I forgot to put this for the last chapter-

I am not J.K. Rowling…yes, I can see you falling off your chairs with amazement (or maybe you are standing, I don't know, whatever floats your boat!)

Love, Life and Endings?

"This is the park?"

As they walked Harry soon realised that there wasn't going to be much conversation but for either Ginny or he answering one of Teddy's enthusiastic comments as he bowled along excitedly, his features changing so quickly it played strange tricks on Harry's eyes. Ginny still did not look at him, she had given no indication she had even realised he was there but for leaving the door open for him when they left the Burrow.

But when they stopped in front of a field ten minutes walk from the village of Ottery St. Catchpole Harry couldn't help himself, he blurted out the question with a mixture of confusion and embarrassment at having to break the silence. It seemed, however, that Ginny couldn't ignore a direct question, her whole posture tightened with her expression and she answered with a hoarse voice as she concentrated hard on helping Teddy climb over a stile.

"This is our park; Teddy can't go to the muggle one in the village because he hasn't got enough control over his metamorphing yet." Her answer was quick and to the point, as if she was worried there was a penalty for using too many words. Sure enough, in the field there was a tyre swing attached to a tree and an old slide. As the small boy set about demonstrating his skill with the swing Ginny sat down on the ground close by, watching him closely.

Harry still stood a few feet behind her, watching the scene. The feeling that he was an intruder hung in the air. It was clear that this was a usual event for Teddy and Ginny and Harry could not help but feel that despite her pretending he was not there his presence had a much more negative effect on Ginny than at first appeared. Shouldn't Ginny have been playing with Teddy? Laughing? Smiling? Shouldn't she be happy?

But there Harry had answered his own question. How could she be happy with him there? He was shocked at himself that he even had the nerve to have taken it this far, normally he would have folded half-way to the door, not having the guts to do this to her. But he guessed his new-found forgiveness with Ron and Hermione must've made him greedy and selfish. He had thought that somehow he had had a right to be there, but that was an arrogant egotistical lie, he had no place to barge back into Ginny's life like this and demand some sort of acknowledgment, it seemed that she was the only one of the Weasley clan who actually saw him with any clarity. As the murderer and coward he was.

The wind flapped his coat and he turned to leave. The constant throb that never left his heart, dulled for a few moments by the appearance of the girl he loved, was returning with full malicious force

"He gets particularly energetic around full moon." Harry froze, unsure whether he had imagined this apparently throwaway comment from the red-head. He scrambled around for something with which to reply, normal conversation was, if applied to Harry's situation, more than he could ask for.

"But he's not-"

"No, he's not, but there is no denying what his father was, the werewolf in him always seems to be lurking beneath the surface. Why, Harry?" Her last comment was so out of the blue it completely caught Harry off guard; his heart gave a vicious throb.

"I-er-" he stuttered, cursing his inability to speak properly.

Ginny finally brought herself to look at Harry again; she found that her pain was also mingled with an overwhelming swelling in her heart she had not felt in a long time. Her eyes roved over Harry's features as she drank them in, unable to deny herself the sight of him being so close after all these years when she thought she'd never see him again. But he had changed, his face always wore a haunted look that Harry did not seem able to shake and the emotions she felt when she looked at him were testimony to how things had altered between them as well.

"Did you think you were being noble? Was that it? Did you think you would save us some grief if you faked your own death? I suppose you thought we'd be better off." She did not need to look at Harry's expression to know she had hit the mark, she knew him too well.

"Yes, that and other things." Harry sounded defeated and ashamed.

"How dare you." Harry froze, and Ginny could feel the anger welling up inside her, pushing aside the other feelings. Her anger was not loud and brash like Ron's, nor violent like Harry's, it was cool and level and infinitely more forbidding. "How dare you make that kind of decision as if we didn't matter-"

"Ofcourse you matter." Harry cut across weakly.

"You left without word or warning, leaving a note that you knew would make us assume you had killed yourself, you disregarded any thought of our opinions on the subject, and when you did that you as good as said that we didn't matter."

"Don't you see? I did that for you-besides my own selfish reasons, I'll admit-but to stop the hurt, to end it…" he tried to explain desperately.

"Don't you think I know that's what you thought you were doing? But you were too busy wallowing in your own shame, too busy being a stupid self-deprecating bastard to realise you destroyed a lot more in leaving than staying would have." She was standing up now, facing him, seeing the acceptance in his face as she muttered furiously, holding back due to Teddy's presence.

"You should have known, why did you have to be imbecilic and too smothered by your own emotions to see the obvious? What logic could have justified and deluded you into thinking that pretending to commit suicide would be better than staying and facing your problems?"

But then it hit her, helped by the clue of the look on Harry's pained face, and the anger subsided as quickly as it had come. She was overwhelmed by the familiar instinct to comfort him and her heart twisted at the sensation, dulled initially by the shock of what she had just realised. "You weren't pretending were you? That was you the old woman saw on the bridge, you were actually going to do it…" her voice trailed away in horror.

Despite the fact that she had already believed she'd lost him, probably due to that fact, the idea that he was actually that close to committing such an act was devastating. Harry was staring at her with those big green eyes she still loved so much, waiting for a reaction after the stunned revelation slipped off her frozen expression.

Harry watched her face as is changed slowly into an oddly twisted expression, as if Ginny didn't want to say what she was about to, but was forced to anyway. "Why didn't you? What stopped you from…doing it?"

Harry stopped, she had asked the question that he had been too afraid to ask, too scared that he would nothing more than cowardice if he looked closer at his reasons for not ending it once and for all. But as he looked at Ginny, the wind rustling her red hair against her face, everything suddenly became blindingly clear, and he voiced the true logic behind his decision, realising and speaking them for the first time.

"It was you." He answered, shocked at his own response. "I love you." He hesitated, not looking at her, knowing this statement to be true and only now realising it's relevance to what happened on the bridge. "Being in love is how you know you're alive, right? I think…as long as I still loved you-even if you hated me-I could go on living. Even if you didn't love me back, my love for you, it gave me something to live for." He explained with as much truthfulness as he could; now all he was left to do was to stare as the ground.

Harry heard footsteps, and looked up to see Ginny standing in front of him, a look of softness in her eyes. "I love you too," she said, tears forming in her eyes, she blinked them away, causing droplets to stick to her eyelashes and hang there, glistening, Harry gazed at them, unable to stop wondering at Ginny's beauty. They stood and looked at each other for a long time, but neither made any move to touch the other. There was still a lot of hurt and pain between them, they could not just wipe away the last four years, it was too soon. But they both loved each other, and, over time, that would be enough.

They walked back from the field (Teddy on Harry's shoulders after much persistence) and Harry stopped as the Burrow came into view, it's towering levels meandering into the sky with slanting walls and wonky floors, "I forgot how beautiful it was," he breathed, Ginny looked at him, a smile forming on her lips, and she grabbed his hand and held it as they walked the remaining yards to their home.

--

Breakfast was interesting to say the least. The kitchen was crowded with people bursting with happiness at Harry's return yet trying to suppress it, hesitant at how to treat him and the situation, the result was an odd atmosphere as they tucked into some of Molly's bacon and eggs.

Suddenly there was a great clattering of wings, talons and beaks as around six owls all tried to get through the kitchen window at once. The flurry of noise caused the loud chatter of the family to cease and everyone stared at the ensuing tangle of birds. Someone came to their senses and went to wrench a couple more windows open so that the chaos could end. All of the owls promptly landed in front of Harry, all but one, which carried the Daily Prophet, and had landed in Ron's breakfast, a slice of toast still halfway to his mouth.

Harry pulled the letter off the nearest owl, already knowing what it contained. "It's a letter asking for an interview," he stated, staring at the typed letters on the parchment. He stopped halfway to his second owl as Ron swore loudly, earning a tut from his mother. Harry looked round to see Ron reading the front page of the paper. "Look at this!" Harry read the headline as Ron turned the paper around so they could all see it.

The Boy Who Lived Lives

"But how do they know?" asked Hermione.

"Never mind that, they were sure to find out sooner or later anyway," Arthur pointed out.

Harry absentmindedly began to read the other letters, which were various requests for exclusive interviews and other such things from the media, but Harry didn't really see them, he was too busy thinking.

Everything wasn't neat and tidy, life didn't work that way, you had to take what you got and make the best of it. The hurt and pain caused couldn't just be eradicated, he knew that better than most, and the past few years couldn't be ignored. But they could learn from them and time would help with all those things that still lurked darkly in their hearts. Harry knew everything wasn't perfect, this was no happily ever after ending, but it was a start, and far more than he could ask for. Harry, after four long years, had hope.

"Look! There's more!" Charlie pointed out the window as several other silhouettes drew nearer.

"There'll be bird droppings everywhere!" Cried Molly Weasley, shooing a greedy owl away from a pile of bacon frantically, much to George's amusement.

Harry looked at the letters in his hands and then at the family surrounding him, his family, and voiced something he had been slowly realising, "This is just the beginning."

A/N: SOB! It's over! Man was writing the stuff between Ginny and Harry hard, I tried to make Ginny quite stiff cause that's what her anger is about, that's what makes it so brutal.

I felt it would feel too easy and false if Ginny and Harry just got back together like that, there was a lot of hurt there, but I hope I made clear they will be together, it just may take a little time. Please, please, tell me if you liked the last chapter-or just give your overall opinion of the story now that it's over and thankyou again to everyone who took a little time out of their day to read this and made me very happy!