Phew. This one is, like, fifteen pages long in a notebook, and it took me forever to perfect it. Ah, whatever. Hope you enjoy.

*~ The Unofficial and Unheard Soundtrack ~*

*~ Drops of Jupiter ~ Train ~*


His feet seemed to be relying on gravity to move; each time he lifted one up to inch down another step, it seemed to crash right back down again, only this time in a spot lower than the one previously. It was a surprisingly good system – until he reached the bottom of the flight of stairs and had to actually use his muscles.

Harry groaned inwardly as he shuffled toward the grand doors. On the other side were tens of hundreds of people waiting to congratulate and thank him even more; he didn't think he could take anymore claps on the back without the large slash across It screaming in protest, or be pulled into anymore stranger-given hugs without the scar-bruise combo over his heart burning like Fiendfyre. Apart from all of that, he was still grief-stricken, very, very sore, and exhausted, even after his first naturally dreamless sleep in years.

Still, if things went the way he hoped, his not-so-long misery would be worth it. Inhaling a deep breath of fresh morning air that was lazily floating through the open front doors, he entered.

His arrival must have been highly anticipated: Every eye in the Great Hall was fixed on the threshold, where he stood. There was a frozen second of silence reminiscent of the one the day before, and then the occupants of all the tables stood together and began to applaud him. Harry didn't move, but his eyes raked over them all, his brain being attacked the realization that he could never have seen so many smiling faces again. Just when he thought he could move without someone clapping in his ear, he saw Seamus raise himself slightly from his spot at the Hufflepuff table, and before Harry could wonder why his friend wasn't at his house table, Seamus bellowed, "Speech!"

The cheering started again, and Harry took another tired look around before he raised a hand to shoulder height and the occupants of the Great Hall fell respectfully silent.

"I hate you, Seamus," he called out jokingly; Seamus winked at him while most people laughed. Harry took a moment to think before he went on, "I could give every last person in this room about a hundred reasons why they deserve to hear something special from me" – the crowd inflated hopefully – "but for every one I can think of a thousand more why not." They deflated just as fast. "I've been through some of the hardest things I could ever have dreamed of in these past few months – we all have," said Harry. "We've had some tough times, we've learned some tough truths."

He lowered his gaze, swallowed, and blinked hard.

"I think…" He moistened his lips. "I think, though, honestly, it would be better if everyone heard one more tough truth, this time about me."

The tension re-mounted. Harry paused, searching for the words.

"To all of you, I'm nothing less than a god. I'm invincible, immortal, I never make any mistakes. I can do anything if I can defeat the Darkest wizard of all time. I've always done the right thing, I've never broken down. I never complained, because it was my duty to the wizarding world."

He let out a short, bitter laugh, earning him some startled looks.

"The only part of all that that's even remotely true is that I've never broken down, and that was because something or someone else needed to be taken care of. The rest of that is a complete lie. There isn't any possible way I'm invincible – I can't count the number of times I've nearly died. I make tons of mistakes."

He let out another laugh, but with less power behind it.

"My mistakes have gotten people killed, or mauled, or tortured! I can't do anything – I could barely walk into that forest last night. And never done the wrong thing – ha! I've done the wrong thing dozens of times! I'm as human as anyone in this room. I have all the same flaws – more, probably!"

His voice had increased and he was breathing heavily. He lowered it, calming himself.

"When you look at me," said Harry, "you see a hero, someone who can only do good. But when I look in the mirror, I see a seventeen year-old that never had a childhood, or a real teenage life. I see scars and bruises everywhere, I see forced reminders. Where you see the famous Harry Potter, I see a lonely kid-made-adult with nothing left for him, no real home to relax in, and no parents to tell him how proud they are of him."

The Great Hall was trapped in a dead silence. Everyone stared at Harry in something like horror, and Harry glared back at them angrily for a minute or two before turning on his heel and walking back out the door. His plan had been blown, and his appetite was gone.

He walked out the front doors and out into the grounds. It was only partly cloudy out, and there was a would-be pleasant breeze ruffling his hair. It normally would have been soothing, but now it annoyed him. The weather was nice, but there too many people not there with him to enjoy it. Just the thought made the whole day seem darker somehow.

Harry walked around to one side of the castle and sat in the shade, leaving his back up against the wall. He closed his eyes, trying so, so hard to forget.

A few moments later, he heard as much as he sensed someone approach him. "Harry?" said a voice softly.

His eyes snapped open.

She stood above him, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as though she were trying to keep herself from falling apart. She was staring at him with something akin to awe; her mouth was slightly open and her eyes were larger than usual (along with red-rimmed). She looked different than she had the last time he had taken a good, long look at her, but they were small things – her cheeks looked more hollow, she had a dark purple bruise next to her left eye, and her eyes seemed significantly darker, all things Harry wasn't at all pleased with – and he couldn't help but notice that these were all small things he had been told that he had acquired after Sirius had died.

And with Ginny standing above him and that realization, Harry broke.

He didn't know how to feel anymore; he didn't want to feel. He didn't know what he was going to do: He had thought that he was going to die, and that would be that. Now he had to deal with all the emotions, all the devastation, destruction, and deaths, all of the pressure and congratulations – all of the everything that came with finishing Voldemort off once and for all. Should he be happy that Voldemort was dead, or should he be sad that so many others had died in the process? Should he regret that so many of his loved ones weren't there to celebrate with and comfort him, or should he be angry at himself for letting them die?

Harry wished, at that moment, that he was still a dead body in the heart of the Forbidden Forest, with the Resurrection Stone inches from his fingertips.

"Harry?" Ginny asked again.

That was it.

He snapped his eyes closed, bent his head forward over his knees, and screamed at the top of his lungs, his fingers pulling at his hair. It tore his throat, but he welcomed the physical pain; he preferred it over the emotional turmoil. He wanted the injuries to cover up the grief and the suffering.

Harry looked up at Ginny with his hands still on top of his head, breathing heavily. Her face was beyond surprised or startled – it was fearful. She had taken a step back, and her arms hugged her middle more tightly than before.

"Harry, are you okay?" she asked, her voice strained.

Harry didn't reply.

"Harry?"

A pause.

"I don't know," said Harry. A few tears leaked out of his eyes; he couldn't bother himself with wiping them away. He took his hands out of his hair. "I don't know anything anymore."

He felt like a bottle of soda that had been shaken up and opened, the pressure spilling out over the sides. He was the sticky, sloppy mess left to be mopped up.

Ginny kneeled down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Harry stared hard at his feet.

"Harry, talk to me."

"What do you want me to say, Ginny?" snapped Harry angrily. He yelled out in frustration again.

Ginny didn't answer. She moved in front of Harry and grasped him firmly by the shoulders. He wouldn't meet her gaze; she forced his head up to look at her.

"Harry," she said with such a mix of emotions that he actually paid attention, "you are not alone."

The two of them locked eyes; Harry had never seen the something that was in the depths of brown there before, but it drew him to attempt to commit every different shade to memory in the space of only a few seconds.

"I know," he said finally, breaking the transfixed silence between them, "but sometimes… it feels like it."

"You'll always have me," said Ginny.

"Yeah. Yeah, I will."

They stared at each other for a few more seconds, then Ginny moved to sit beside Harry. He put his arm around her, intending for it to be a gesture of comfort more than anything else, but she leaned into his embrace, wrapping her own arms around his middle.

Neither spoke another word for a long time. A calm wind made the branches of the trees in the Forbidden Forest sway, but they both made an effort to avoid looking at it.

"What… what did you do this year?"

Harry looked down at Ginny. She seemed to be wishing she hadn't asked, yet also wanting nothing more than to know every detail. He sighed.

"I don't know," he said.

"Harry, stop trying to protect me," she said, half-stern, half-exasperated. "I can take care of myself."

An image of Ginny dueling Bellatrix popped into Harry's mind, the jet of green light missing her by no more than an inch, the whoosh of speeding death that ruffled her hair as it passed…

I know you can, he wanted to say. I know you can take care of yourself. But the mere thought of what would have happened had Ginny not moved out of the way made the words die in his throat, and he did not reply right away.

"I'm more trying to protect myself," he murmured. "It… I…" He swallowed. There were no words to describe the feeling inside him.

Harry looked at Ginny. She didn't seem surprised or annoyed or anything else besides accepting. He sighed again.

"Ginny, do you know what a Horcrux is?"

And he told her. Everything. He told her about Voldemort's Horcruxes, his past, and about the prophecy. He told her about where he, Ron, and Hermione had gone, and he pulled out, with a shaking hand, his mother's letter and picture and showed them to her, gazing at them both in wonder before replacing them in his pocket. He told her about Remus' visit and his thoughts on it, about the Ministry, and about the Ron leaving, the last of which he had to physically hold her back from hunting her brother down. He told her about Godric's Hollow, about Bathilda's house, and what Voldemort made him see afterward. He told her how he stared at the Marauder's Map, the doe Patronus, and Ron's not-so-warm welcome from Hermione. He told her about Xenophelius Lovegood's house, the Hallows, Potterwatch, and had immense trouble recounting Malfoy Manor. He told her about Shell Cottage, and Gringotts, and what he'd done during the first half of the battle, and Ron and Hermione kissing, and watching Snape die, and his memories…

Harry had hardly taken a break during all of this, but now he hesitated. Ginny's eyes were shining with tears, one of the few times he had seen them so. He had seen and heard everything again, felt everything again, and if that was going to happen with the next part of his tale… And yet, even with all the doubts, he felt better. It was reminiscent of the night after the Triwizard, and the graveyard: The poison was slowly seeping out of his veins, his being. His heart felt lighter than it had in years.

Harry took a deep breath.

"It's the single hardest thing I've ever had to do," he said quietly, in a low voice, "but at the same time, it's not." Ginny looked hurt and was about to say something when he went on, in the same volume, "It was all finally going to be over. And… and I could see them."

Ginny didn't have to ask for him to know what she was wondering: Who? He didn't answer. Yet.

"The feeling… It was… I felt cold. Like I was already dying. I wanted it all to end, but at the same time I didn't. I still wanted to live my life. I almost didn't go just because of that."

He looked Ginny in the eyes.

"Then I thought of you, and everyone else, and it made me realize that if it defeated Riddle and gave everyone else a future, it was worth it."

He paused, wondering whether or not to say what he wanted to. He did.

"I never really thought I was going to make it. I always just looked at it like it was inevitable, like it's inevitable that we all have to die sometime."

There was a long silence, in which Harry became lost again in his jumbled thoughts.

"Harry?" prompted Ginny quietly, sounding as though she had a head cold. He jumped. It was a while before he spoke again, but he looked more attentive.

"I still don't know how I did it," said Harry at last. "My hands were shaking. It was… I see things differently now. Life is just… life is so precious, and it was all going to come to an end. My heart was beating so fast… I think it was the first time I ever really felt scared. And I wasn't scared of death, I was scared of dying." He looked at Ginny. "Does that make sense?"

She half-shrugged. "Not really."

Harry nodded as though it was the answer to an extremely complicated question he had been contemplating for a while. "I didn't think you would," he murmured.

Again, there was an extended period of silence. Unlike the others, however, this one was tenser, more anxious, as Ginny waited for Harry to continue.

"I stopped Neville, and told him to kill Nagini," he said, and almost winced at the look on Ginny's face. "I don't know why it was so easy. I… I tried to stay focused, telling myself that it would give you all a life. And then…"

He swallowed hard.

"I passed you," he said scratchily, barely above a whisper. "It… that was the hardest part. I wanted to be stopped, I wanted it to end differently, but you kept me going. You were why I was still fighting."

He paused a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out the Snitch.

"It said, 'I open at the close': the close of my life. Do you know what was inside, Ginny?" He was still staring at it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ginny shake her head a fraction of an inch to each side.

"It was the Resurrection Stone," he said quietly. "I… I used it."

He covered his face with his hands drew a deep, shuddering breath; He moved his hands up so that they pressed his bangs on top of his head. He squeezed his eyes shut tight.

"My… my mum told me I was brave," whispered Harry, a tear leaking out from under his closed eyelid. "My dad said they were proud of me."

He rubbed his face again.

"Remus and Sirius…" Harry rook another rasping breath as a few more tears escaped from him. "They walked with me, all the way. It almost felt like… like I was going home. I was with my family."

Harry opened his eyes and stared at the sky. The sun had now climbed far above the tallest trees of the Forbidden Forest.

"Now I've lost them all again."

Ginny had hardly spoken during all of this, but now she stretched out her hand to rest it on Harry's shoulder. He shook his head slowly, taking a deep breath.

"Ginny," he said suddenly, much louder than he had been a little while before, "do you want to know the last thing I thought of before the Killing Curse hit me?"

She nodded slightly. He looked her in the eyes.

As an answer, he leaned forward and captured her lips with his. It was the best he'd felt in a long time; he wished he could stay there forever, kissing Ginny, driving all of the death and pain out of his mind, but Ginny broke away from him and tackled him in just a hug, burying her face into his shoulder. He could feel his shirt becoming slightly damp and realized with a jolt that Ginny was sobbing – sobbing? Ginny? – her heart out. He had just wrapped his arms around her when she lifted her head and gave him another quick kiss.

They stayed that way for a while, wrapped up in each other. Slowly, they shifted from their kneeling position and leaned back against the wall, but they didn't let go.

"And… and what happened next?" asked Ginny tentatively.

Harry took another deep breath and told her all about Dumbledore and what he had said.

"You know the rest," he finished with a sigh.

Ginny looked at him, and he looked back at her, watching her eyes search his face.

"You still haven't answered one question, Harry," she said softly after a while.

"I haven't?" asked Harry, confused, but there was an odd, sort of teasing note in her tone.

She nodded. "You didn't happen to meet any Veela, did you?"

He laughed weakly. "No, no Veela. You didn't happen to meet any scar-less blokes, did you?"

She shook her head; he could see that she was struggling to contain her happiness. "Nope," she breathed.

He grinned. "Good."

Their lips connected again, and the two didn't break fully apart until the sun was nearly right in the middle of the infinite blue that was the sky. They didn't care. They were free.

Wow. I know, I should have gotten that done SOOOO much sooner, but it was Christmas break, and I have other stories I need to work on – If you like time-travel, check out Simply Complicated, and if you have, you rock – and then school started again – okay, it's still the first week, but whatever – and I haven't gotten a chance to type it up. It's here now, though! Hope you liked it!