There was no mistaking the anger in the voice on the other end.

"Ginny?"

"Yes, Harry." She sounded impatient with him, as if he had asked a question that was inappropriate to her reason for calling.

He blinked several times as he tried to read the time on the phone. One fifteen. Why was she calling him so late?

"So, you're not going to explain, then?" she demanded. If she had been furious with him before, it was nothing compared to the acidity in her voice now.

"Explain what?" His sleep-befuddled brain had suddenly snapped to attention. "What could I have done now?"

"Oh, I believe _you should be answering that question."

The horrible way she seemed to accuse him made his muscles tense, and a knot formed in the pit of his stomach, making him feel slightly nauseous.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

A slight creak and an exhalation of breath let Harry know that Hayley must have gotten to her feet, but he didn't look to see if she had come in.

"Don't play dumb, Harry Potter!" Ginny said angrily. She had almost yelled, which made Harry wince and bring the receiver away from his ear. "You know damn well what I'm talking about! Your other girlfriend!"

"What other... Oh my God, again with all of this?" Harry's temper was rising steadily.

"Didn't we talk about this not three hours ago?" she was saying, her voice quivering with hardly suppressed anger. "I told you already! If you don't have enough sense to decide what and who you want—"

But it was Harry's turn to interrupt. "How many times do I have to tell you, Ginny? Hayley and I are NOT together! We're not, all right? If that's all you've called about, I don't—"

"But why, then, was she at your house?"

Harry was rendered speechless. He stared at the receiver, his eyes wide. How on Earth had she found out? Almost impulsively, his gaze shifted to the window. He could see nothing but the inky sky with half the moon barely visible. He saw no sign of life—or, rather, no sign of someone watching his house.

"Just as I thought," Ginny muttered.

"Look," Harry argued, the volume of his voice increasing with his anger. "I don't know who the hell is telling you all this rubbish, but I swear on my wand that—"

"Save it, Harry!" she growled. "I don't want to waste my time hearing what I have all night."

"But, it's not—"

"If you can't give me any more than that, I'm sorry, Harry, but we're done."

Harry was gripping the receiver so tightly that his fingers were cramping painfully, but he didn't care. He longed to break something, anything.

"So, that's it, then? You're just going to take someone else's word on the matter? Have you actually stopped to consider how reliable their knowledge is?"

Hayley stood near the kitchen's entrance, her face set into a deep, concerned frown. Harry's face was a deep shade of red, and he was breathing somewhat unevenly.

"That's ironic, coming from the boy who acted on every bit of information he received, regardless to whether it was real or not."

Harry froze. Her words had cut into him like an emotional dagger. He felt a tearing somewhere inside him, as if someone had just pulled the scab off of a wound that had recently begun to heal.

"That's not, that doesn't, you can't..." Thoughts of his dead godfather immediately came to him, repressed memories flowing like fresh blood from a gash. Sirius's death had been his fault—he hadn't needed Ginny to tell him so. Images too hard to bear: the corridor of the Department of Mysteries devoid of Sirius, the prophecy, the Death Eaters, Bellatrix, Sirius arriving to rescue Harry and his friends, he and Bellatrix dueling, the jet of green light from her wand, the horrible smile that lit her face, Sirius's body falling, falling...

Hayley noticed the change in Harry. She wanted so much to help him, to understand what had caused him so much pain.

Harry had lost all will to defend himself. He simply stared at the phone, feeling so horrible that he thought he could be sick then and there.

"You aren't going to say anything?" Ginny asked, sounding annoyed. She seemed to have not noticed what she had said to him.

"No," Harry said finally. His voice was shaking so much that he wasn't entirely sure she'd heard him. He suddenly felt dizzy, and a horrible burning sensation prickled at the back of his throat. He desperately needed some water.

"I can't believe you," she went on. "After, after I thought you were the best guy on this entire planet. It's not my fault you finished school before I did. You'd said we could still be together, and I'd been stupid enough to think that you had been right." She laughed humorlessly at her own words. "When you started training, you got so busy that we hardly wrote to each other anymore, and you were always too tired to spend any time with me when I came home for the holidays. I was stupid enough to think that would fix itself, too, and when I was asked to play for the Holyhead Harpies, and you weren't happy, I figured you'd come round, but you never did. Everyone always said that there was something dodgy with the way you were acting, but I didn't listen. And now this happens? Damn, Harry. I thought, I thought you'd at least respect me enough to tell me about her, but you didn't. I suppose you hoped I'd never find out?"

Harry didn't answer. He just stared at the receiver in his hand. He felt suffocated in sadness, in the negative emotions that he had worked so hard to conceal since the war had ended. Ginny went on without seeming to notice his unresponsiveness.

"Well, guess what? I have. I can't believe I let you fool me into thinking you actually loved me!"

"Ginny," Harry managed to choke out. "Please don't."

"What, too scared to face the truth? Are you really going to tell me that now, you suddenly don't want to hear about your mistakes?"

"Ginny—"

"For years, I thought you were just this sweet, misunderstood guy who needed someone to listen to him. But I know that our relationship meant nothing to you. You never loved me. This was all just some stupid game to you, wasn't it?"

"No, it—"

"You think that just because you're 'legendary Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived and vanquished Voldemort'"—she spat these words as if they tasted like dirt—"that you can have any girl you want without lifting your wand?" She made a sound that resembled a humorless laugh. "You don't care about anyone's feelings but your own, Harry. You've had us all fooled for years, haven't you?"

Harry was shaking his head back and forth. His lips were moving, but no sound came out. He couldn't fathom how Ginny had even thought any of this was possible. Of course he loved her. He had never considered their relationship a joke.

"The sweet little boy Mum thinks you are. If she's right in describing your parents, you're nothing like them, Harry."

These words were like a blade being driven forcefully into Harry. He dropped the receiver, slumping to the floor. Hayley made to assist him, but he put up a hand, which trembled violently.

Ginny was saying something else, but he couldn't make out the words. His stomach twisted into a painful knot, and he covered his face with a quavering hand. Sweat and tears were pouring into his eyes, making his vision blurry.

He couldn't believe that the person who had managed to hurt him so much was Ginny Weasley. He had thought that she would be the one to understand him the most, that she would be the one to know how he felt at any given moment.

Knowing he was in for more, he picked up the receiver with his free hand. His fingers wouldn't wrap around it properly, and he was perspiring profusely, making his grip slick.

"... be ashamed of you right now. I thought you were better than this, Harry. And to think, we let you come over every summer, we sent you birthday and Christmas gifts... You were probably laughing at us behind our backs, weren't you? You could afford everything, while we had to buy everything secondhand."

"That's... that wasn't my fault!" Harry cried in a strangled voice. "I, I wanted to help you guys so much I, I..." But his words were lost as she continued.

"I can't do this anymore, Harry. I thought you were different, but I was wrong." She sighed deeply. "Be happy with her, Harry. Maybe... maybe she can give you something I couldn't." Her voice trembled as she spoke, and Harry knew that she was about to cry.

She took a long, shaky breath, and, in a voice barely above a whisper, she said, "Goodbye, Harry Potter."