Chapter 14 – Comforting.

Ginny stood with her back to the common room. She was fiddling with the dials of the old radio that sat in the corner, searching through stations and static, trying to find some music to listen to.

Harry was sure she was aware of his approaching, as she tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear and stood a little taller, as if steeling herself for something.

"Ginny."

"I'll just be a second, Harry…" She did not turn to look at him, but kept her eyes fixed on the task she'd assigned herself.

"Gin…"

"Hang on, I'm just trying to find us something decent to listen to. Stupid radio. Did you know this is the same one that was here when my parents were here? Honestly, useless piece of rubbish! You'd have thought –"

"Ginny!" he said, more sharply.

This time when she heard him say her name, she stopped what she was doing and her hands became still. Her shoulders slumped, and she reluctantly turned to face him.

Her eyes were sad.

"You and Neville looked deep in discussion just now…" she sighed.

"We were," he agreed, taking one of her hands in his.

"I think I can guess what it was about… I suppose you want to talk to me about it?"

Harry nodded.

Her eyes darted around the room. "Okay," she sighed. "But not here…"

The room had filled up since they arrived after lunch and did not look like the right place to have such a sensitive discussion. Ginny led Harry out of the portrait hole and down the corridor.

They passed a number of students as they walked, some of whom smiled at Harry in greeting. Once again, he wished he could blend into the background and away from curious eyes. They passed a trio of girls who stared openly at them, and another group who began whispering as soon as they rounded a corner. He had never felt so conspicuous in his life, or wished so fervently to be anonymous.

He didn't want to return their smiles, or pretend to ignore the whispered comments. All he could think of were the images flashing through his mind, triggered by Neville's story, and the need he felt to envelop Ginny in his arms and refuse to ever let go of her again.

Ginny led them to a quiet corridor, narrower and darker than the ones they had just passed through. After a few seconds, her pace slowed to a stop, and she perched herself on the top step of the winding stone staircase that was partially hidden by an ancient looking suit of armor.

"We won't be disturbed here," she said as Harry sat down next to her.

After the gentle hubbub of the common room, the silence of the common room seemed heavy and oppressive, and for all his emotion, Harry could not think of how to begin, where to start this conversation that he sincerely wished he didn't have to have.

In the end, it was Ginny who tentatively opened up the dialogue.

"So… Neville's been telling you about last year?"

"Yeah…"

"He's told you everything?"

Harry nodded slowly.

"I knew he would… As soon as Bill mentioned giving evidence, he looked at me, and it was as if he could read my mind – he knew I wouldn't want it all brought up again. I mean, I always knew it would. All the stories, all the little details. It was always going to end up out in the open somehow. And I didn't want the first time you heard it all to be in a court or in The Daily Prophet. But I didn't know for the life of me how to tell you! It's like the longer I've gone without speaking about it, the easier it's become to pretend that they're not my memories and it's not me it happened to. The thought of talking about it, especially to you, was just too much to bear. And when Neville looked at me in that office, he saw all of that, in an instant. I could see all my own thoughts and feelings and fears in his face, reflected right back at me. And I knew he'd tell you."

Harry sighed, understanding. "It takes a very special person to see what you need before you're strong enough to see it yourself – I should know."

"Really?" she asked, softly.

"Yeah. Sometimes, I see flashes of it in Ron and Hermione, in the things they say to me. Dumbledore was a master of it." He smiled to himself. "He was infuriatingly good at letting me work things out for myself, knowing the journey was as important as the conclusions I came to. And now, I see you doing it. Telling me the things I need to hear, even if I don't particularly WANT to hear them!"

She smiled back at him, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

"You sort of point me in the right direction, even when I'm not sure what I'm meant to be looking for. Or point out to me when I'm being a prat!"

She laughed softly and looked down at her hands.

"You seem to know how to handle me, even when I don't know how to handle myself. It's as if you have an instinct for what's best for me. It's a very special quality."

He bent his down to see her face.

"And that's what Neville was doing when he told me all about last year…"

She nodded, head still bowed. "I know. I'm not angry with him or anything. He did what he did in my best interests. I'm just sad that he had to. I'm sad that there's anything to tell in the first place."

She drew her knees in to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, shivering slightly.

"Are you cold?" Harry asked, circling an arm around her shoulders.

"No, not really. I just feel so… exposed." She gave a wry, humourless laugh. "Silly, isn't it? I feel like all my secrets are out, and all that's left is me – naked and vulnerable."

Harry shook his head. "But I don't understand, Ginny. WHY were they secrets? Why didn't you tell anyone? Why couldn't you tell ME?"

She looked at him, her eyes desperate and lost.

"Because what happened that night was the very worst of me! And I don't mean it was the worst thing that's ever happened to me – although it's not far off – I mean, it was all the parts of me that I hate and would want to change all rolled up into one horrible experience. It's bad enough having to look in the mirror and face myself after it, let alone have to face YOU! It was all my faults and weaknesses, all my worst flaws, and I didn't want you to see me like that! I wanted you to think better of me."

"But that's ridiculous, Ginny! I've never thought more of you than I do right now!" He took her hand and clutched it tightly. "I am so proud of everything you did and the strength you had! I… I really can't fathom what you mean when you say you're ashamed."

As he looked into her eyes, Harry could see that she didn't believe his protestations in the slightest. She was too deeply caught in her own feelings to even try and understand his.

It was as if he was seeing her – really SEEING her – for the first time, drowning in the self-doubt and anguish that must have been plaguing her all this time. Instantly, he recognized it. He had seen it in the shadow that crossed her eyes whenever she talked of the past, and the hesitation behind her smile. He'd seen it in her puckered brow and fidgeting hands, and now he realized, it had been just below the surface of everything she's said and done all summer. This was just the first time he'd seen it without the disciplined, outward façade of self-confidence she'd worked so hard to maintain.

When she spoke, her voice was filled with bitterness and tinged with misery and disgust.

"What, do you want me to list it all for you, Harry? Do you want a catalogue of everything I did wrong? Okay, fine! Firstly, I got cocky and careless and I let myself get caught. Then because of me, Neville got dragged into it all and got tortured."

She ticked them off on her fingers as she spoke, becoming visibly distressed and agitated.

"I wasn't strong enough to throw off the Imperius Curse and I let those monsters get inside my head. And I tortured my friend! I had to listen to him screaming in pain, knowing it was me who was doing it! Do you have any idea what that was like?! Do you know how often I hear that in my dreams?! And then I told them everything they wanted to know! All about what I'd been doing for the DA, how I'd got out of classes, how I avoided prefects, what I planned to do next… The whole time, I kept thinking, Harry wouldn't have done this – he'd never have given in, he'd never have got caught. But all I could see was Neville bleeding… and my whole body hurt so much!" She drew in a breath, half-sobbing. "It hurt to even breathe, and I just couldn't take it! And I knew I was letting you down, but I just wanted it to stop! I'm so sorry, Harry! I just wanted to make it stop! I'm… I'm – so-"

Finally, the sobs took over her and she couldn't say another word. They burst from her with the ferocity of something that's been caged in for too long and she gave herself over to them. As she cried, she seemed to curl in on herself and physically crumple under all the weight of her guilt.

Without thinking, Harry pulled her over to him and pulled her head down onto his chest. He held his arms around her and braced his body against her violent sobs and waited for the storm to pass.

As the months of pain tumbled out of her, he felt his own eyes fill. His own heart ached in sympathy for her, but all he could do was press his face into her hair and rock her, gently and rhythmically, the way he had Teddy only days before.

He waited.

It was a long time before the sobs petered out, and longer still before the tears stopped and her breathing returned to normal, but even then Harry couldn't bear to let go of Ginny. Instead, he placed the softest kiss on her forehead and wrapped his arms around her a little tighter.

He began to whisper to her, not daring to raise his voice in the deafening silence of the corridor.

"You're wrong, Ginny… You're wrong. It's exactly what I would have done. I would have said anything if I thought it would stop someone I cared about from being hurt, and I will never, never blame you for that." He sighed softly. "I know what the pain of the Cruciatus is like, and I know how it feels to have someone evil get inside your head. I know how it feels to think you've let someone down, and how it feels to have the weight of it all on your shoulders. I… I understand guilt, and shame, and fear. I understand what it's like to have memories so bad that you bury them away in your deepest parts and pray that they never have to surface. And above all that, I know what it's like to carry it alone, never telling anyone. That's what breaks my heart about this – that you've suffered it alone when you didn't have to."

She twisted in his arms and looked up at him tentatively.

"If anyone understands what you're feeling right now, it's me. Okay?"

They stared at each other in the dim light, Ginny's eyes searching his. Eventually, she nodded slowly, before resting her head on his chest again. "Okay."

"Promise me you'll talk to me in future, Gin?"

She sniffed and murmured, "Even if I talked to you from now until I was fifty, I couldn't tell you everything that happened, Harry. There was just…too much." She sounded so tired, and so sad.

"I know that. I don't think we'll ever be able to talk about everything that happened, either of us. But most things – the things that keep you awake or haunt your dreams, the things that hurt you and worry you – those things… I want you to tell me. I want to be able to help. Or at least listen."

She nodded again.

"I know what you're like, Ginny. You want everyone to think you're invincible – that you don't need babying because you're the youngest or protecting because you're the only girl – I understand that. And I understand that you can't help but want to take care of everyone else and hold us all together, just like your mum. Always 'getting on with it', no fuss, no nonsense… But it's okay to be vulnerable sometimes, you know? It's okay to let someone else take care of you, once in a while."

She gave a reluctant chuckle. "You're a fine one to talk, Potter!"

He laughed quietly. "Okay, I admit, it's something I need to work on as well!" he conceded. "But we can work on it together, can't we?"

She wiped her tear-stained face and swallowed. "Thank you. For being so understanding."

"It's the least I can do, after everything you've done for me. I wouldn't have got this far without you, Ginny – believe me. I'd still be sitting under that tree at the Burrow, blaming myself for everything and anything, too scared to face the real world again. You stopped me from living in the past and kept me in the present. And now that we're together, I feel like I even have a future…"

She sat up and looked at him, eyes shining

She reached up a trembling hand and cupped his cheek gently as she looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "In those first few days after the Battle, I used to wonder how the hell we'd get through all of this. So many awful things had happened, I thought we needed a miracle or something to come out the other side. But now… Now I think maybe we just need each other…"

He leaned down and touched his lips softly to hers. "I think so too."