Ghost of You
~Chapter 25~
I've seen your flag on the Marble Arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah by John Cale
~*~
Ginny swore that Ron had secretly drugged her food because as soon as it hit her stomach her eyes drooped and she made a quick retreat back to Harry's bed. She curled up on the far side, her side, and felt as if she closed her eyes and rolled over into a very real dream. She snuggled down against something very warm and comfortable, and threw an arm and a leg over the object, burying her head against the wall of heat. A hand started rubbing up and down her back and she felt herself smile against fabric and lavender laundry soap. The room started to come into focus through her closed eyes, sunlight and freezing cold were fighting for her attention, but the warmth and comfort kept pulling her back toward sleep. The covers shifted a little bit, and the hand ran over her knotted braid, than he exhaled. She smiled again and a familiar voice whispered,
"Are you awake now?"
"No." She whispered back.
"Okay." He laughed softly and continued to play with her braid.
"Is this a dream?" She asked the fabric and rubbed her face against it.
"Only if you want it to be." The voice rumbled low and deep in his chest, and then stopped to be replaced by the steady beating of his heart. She felt the edges of sleep coming back to claim her from the quiet, golden, snuggly morning she could have been having and didn't fight it. Then a pan dropped in the kitchen and Hermione started laughing.
"You should get rid of your flatmates." She grumbled and squinted before she opened her eyes. Harry laughed,
"We're kind of a package deal."
"Are you trying to say that even when you're married and have children Ron and Hermione will still be mucking up a perfectly good morning for you?" She looked up into his face. Harry thought about it for a second, a small smile played across his lips, and bright bottle green eyes looked away from her face for a moment, then he shook his head.
"No, I don't think my wife would like that."
"Damn right." She grumbled, knowing no woman in her right mind would want Ron and Hermione in their home at all times. Suddenly she was rolling and laughing, as his hands ran up and down her body and he showered her with soft and lingering kisses. "Was it something I said?" She laughed against his lips.
"You could say that." He whispered into her mouth and then kissed her again. She melted into the bed and onto his hands as they worked their way up and down her body over her clothes. She stuck out a palm to steady herself and it landed on springy gauze.
"Oh, sorry." She stopped and pulled away, her mind slowly de-fuzzing. Harry rolled onto his back and she sat up in the sea of blankets and sheets and took a good look at him. Happy, he looked so happy, and yet the thick pads of gauze were making large bumps along his t-shirt. He tucked his hands behind his head and nodded once at her,
"Go ahead."
Slowly and cautiously she lifted the edge of his shirt and started to push it up his body, all the way up to his collarbones. She looked it over at first, under his collarbone on the right side, left ribs right near his heart, and right at his stomach were the taped down patches of hospital grade gauze. She sneaked a look back up at him and was met with serious dark green and a line of lips. She picked at the hospital tape on the gauze near his heart and it pulled away to show off a deep and healing, angry, red scar.
"More scars." She sighed at the long red line. Quickly she covered it back up and pulled his shirt back down, staring through the layers to where she knew his newest near death experience was now healing.
"I thought girls liked scars." He said, and she looked up through her lashes at him.
"Not all girls."
"So you don't like me anymore?" He trained his eyes upon her, even though his tone was playful.
"I don't like your scars."
"All my scars?" He absently ran a hand over his forehead. Without thinking, without hesitation, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the faded red lightning bolt.
"Not all of them." She whispered against it, and then pulled back. "More what they represent."
"My cunning and daring newsworthy tales?" He grinned.
"Your flash judgments and death wishes." She gave him a stern look. Ron let out a string of cuss words amidst Hermione's pealing laughter in the kitchen and she sighed at the wall. "I have to go back."
"I know." He reached toward her and she fell back onto the bed against his side, careful not to press too hard. "It doesn't hurt anymore."
"It looks like it does." She looked up at him.
"I've had worse." He said to the wall and they both fell silent. Despite the closeness, despite the slowly simmering need to have his hands all over her body again, something felt very off. A distance was growing between them, and she had a feeling if it wasn't addressed it would only get worse.
"Is everything okay?" She quietly asked.
"Now it is." He wrapped his arm around her, squeezing her tight against his side.
"With us. Is everything okay with us?" She looked over at him and held her breath.
"Why wouldn't it be?" He swallowed hard.
"At the hospital," she paused and focused on the wall in front of them, her stomach starting to churn with worry. "You just, you looked at me…" She dropped off. She knew what she needed to say, but the words got jumbled in her brain.
"I looked at you how?" It rumbled in his chest as he stared at the wall as well, not even glancing at her out of his peripheral vision.
"Maybe I was just seeing things." She mumbled to herself, her heart started thumping wildly in her chest.
"You weren't." He whispered. She finally turned to face him, and Harry frowned and looked down at his hands. "I did."
"Harry, why? Why can't you believe that nothing is going to happen with Neville? I don't like him like that." She pressed her lips together tightly.
"What happened in the Room of Requirement?" He quietly asked, still looking at his hands. Her wild heart froze in her chest.
"Who told you about that?" She choked.
"Does it even matter?" He finally looked up, and his eyes bore down into her. "Why didn't you tell me about it?"
"I didn't know where you were! It's not like I can send you a letter, it will give away your position. And then I was called to the hospital. You were unconscious! I was fighting off Mediwitches who wanted to torture you." She quickly answered.
"Don't be dramatic, Ginny. Why didn't you tell me?" He commanded. She saw it in his eyes; the desperation, the anxiety, the rising anger. She shrunk back a bit on the bed, awaiting the explosion.
"I was going to." She said in a tiny voice.
"Why don't I believe you? What the hell happened in there?" Harry took a big breath and held it, locking her to the bed with his carefully controlled face. She could tell he was trying so hard not to explode on her, but he was getting dangerously close. Only hours ago she had been planning on telling him, after that dream she knew she needed to come clean. But the agonized look on his face made her brain flutter with thought for a moment. It must look horrible to him; her and Neville sneaking into the Room of Requirement, together. She quickly fumbled out,
"I told him the prophecy. That's it, that's all that happened. I told him it was almost him instead of you. It was a mistake. I shouldn't have said anything."
He instantly flew off the bed, putting space between them. He started pacing back and forth in front of the window in his room. Everything froze within her. He wasn't supposed to act like that. He was supposed to get angry for a moment, maybe even shout at her, but pacing. Pacing was bad. Pacing was very, very bad. What could he possibly be so upset about now? Nothing had happened. Her brain fluttered again, trying to tell her something but all she could hear were her breaths coming out of her chest, hard and scared.
"Why would you do that to me?" Harry almost whispered, still pacing across the wood floor.
"But nothing…I just told…I didn't think it was such a big…" She stuttered and then immediately broke off. The window panes started to rattle and Harry stopped moving and started taking very slow long breaths, as if trying very hard not to make everything in the room explode. He turned toward her, tense and disbelieving.
"Of course it's a big deal, Ginny. I told you that in confidence! I trusted you." His voice dropped low, the panes still rattling in the windows, as he continued. "I don't trust anyone. But I trusted you, and you just…"
He dropped off, pacing again, and the words hit her square in the chest. The memories from this summer, the memories from their long, shared history flooded her. She had been so callous. She continued to watch him pace, her wide eyes following each furious step. The room was almost vibrating with his anger, and she felt just the tiniest bit of indignation. It wasn't like she had unloaded everything on Neville; she had only told him one thing, one thing that pertained only to Neville. She understood him being angry, but did he have to react this badly toward it? Instead of letting him continue to slowly boil she just came out and said what she was thinking. It was time to stop keeping things to herself.
"I didn't think it mattered anymore, the prophecy is fulfilled, and it won't change Neville's life in any way. It's not like I told him about anything important."
"It doesn't matter what you told him! You shouldn't have said anything at all! Does my trust mean so little to you?" He yelled at her and his lamp shattered on the bed stand next to her. She flinched as the pieces exploded in a glassy spray across the sheets and all over the floor. Harry started pacing again, the panes rattling. She shook the glass from her hair and took a deep breath. That was completely unnecessary. She understood that he was mad, but now he was just overreacting. She tried to keep calm. Unleashing her temper upon his fury was only going to make this get ugly fast. She would at least attempt to be in control so that they could talk through this.
"I'm sorry. It was a lapse in judgment. I've been having a rough run of it with all these tabloids. He's my best friend, Harry." She evenly responded, but it only seemed to infuriate him more.
"I haven't even told your brother, my best friend, some of those things, Ginny. You didn't have a right to say anything. I can't believe you'd betray me like that." Harry stopped his tirade and lowered his voice to finish, "you're not who I thought you were." Panic clenched in her gut.
"Don't say that. Don't say that." She pushed up from the bed, glass falling from her lap. The word 'betray' rippled across her chest. He stopped in front of her and it was almost painful to look at him. He took a labored breath, the window panes still shaking and snapped,
"All I'm hearing are these stories about you at school, and I find myself thinking more and more that I didn't know you at all. The person in front of me right now is not the same girl from this summer." He gave her a dismissive sort of look. It was as if he'd kicked her in the gut. Then just as quickly she felt her closely controlled anger snap deep in her chest and her body almost hummed with the force of it.
"And you're the same?" She yelled. "Running off into danger, making bloody lamps explode and being moody all the time? What happened to the man who kept me company even when I didn't say a word? Who stood up for me in front of Ron? Where the hell did he go? Because all you are is someone who is judging me and acting like I should be carted off to Azkaban for something so small!"
"Small?" He shouted back. "Of course I can judge you! You broke our confidence. You're running off, having fun with Neville, stirring up this gossip about you, all while I'm out there killing myself." He snapped.
"You chose to do that!" She flung her arms out in her rage, almost smacking him they had gotten so close. "And Neville is my best friend; of course I'm going to be around him all the time. You think I'd tell you to stay away from Hermione because she's a girl?"
"Hermione isn't in LOVE with me!" He roared. She took a step back, her socks crunching against the glass. She stood there, shellshocked for a heartbeat, before he continued. "And don't you dare," he warned, "tell me that you don't know that. I tried to be patient Ginny, I tried to be understanding, I tried to tell myself that I was just reading into your whole friendship, but its all bullshit. You know he's in love with you and you haven't done anything to stop it."
"Who gives a fuck if he is? I'm in love with you!" She yelled at him.
"You have an odd way of showing it." He shouted and started pacing again. "I don't know you at all anymore. I can't even recognize you."
"This is me." She said her anger filling over any kind of hurt she was feeling. "You wouldn't know that because you were out in that fucking tent for a year…but this is me, Harry. You just liked me better when I was sick!" She spat the words at him and then felt a wave of tears threaten to break through. Was she right? The longer the silence pulled out between them the more she started to think she was.
"That's not true." He finally said in a hushed voice.
"It has to be. Neville started being my friend two years ago. He understood when I told him that you'd broken up with me. He was so upbeat when I told him that we'd have to suffer through a year without you. He patched me up, and made me smile all last year in that hell that Hogwarts had become. And then you stepped in, thinking that everything was going to be so easy now that you had won and everything was fine. And I was so sick…" She paused and took a shaky breath. "And the second I started to come back out of it was the second we started fighting. You liked me better when I was suicidal."
"Don't you dare say that." He snapped to attention toward her, the window panes shaking violently this time. "Who you were last year, and who you were this summer aren't what I'm talking about. This girl…right here…" he looked her up and down. "Who the hell are you? Telling my secrets to Neville? Doing things to get your name splashed all over the tabloids. Getting mad at me because of what you did?"
"I just told him he wasn't the chosen one!" She screamed at him. "I didn't tell him about Snape or the train station or Malfoy! I didn't tell him anything important! And he seemed fine with it. He told me…." She stopped and choked on the rest of the sentence. Harry's eyes flashed toward her again.
"Say it." He growled. She shook her head, tears starting to fill her chest again. "I'm not fucking around Ginny. You need to tell me everything that happened. Right now. Everything."
"He implied that," she shakily started, his eyes pinning her to the floor. "That he's okay knowing his destiny, because yours gave you…" She stopped, tears clouding her eyes.
"Say it." He snapped.
"Me. Because you get me." She forced out and turned away from him, furiously wiping at her face as the tears fell. "So he's in love with me."
"And how long have you known this?" Harry asked in a strained voice.
"I don't know, Harry." She moaned through her tears. She couldn't look at his face; his clenched fists at his sides were enough. "I tried to think that I was just looking too hard at it. I thought he was just being friendly. Then I thought he was just being flirty, like last year." She stopped when a window pane broke behind her, flooding the room with ice cold air. It caused a hitched breath to come out. "I thought he was just being my best friend. But I ignored it. I wished it wasn't love. I tried to just brush it aside."
"Did you know last year?" He darkly asked. The room started to fill with a horrible chill, snow falling through the broken pane melted against the windowsill. "Did you know he loved you last year, when I was gone?"
"Does it even matter?" She whirled around on him, anger flooding over her anxiety. "You broke up with me!"
"Don't," he started in a warning tone. "Don't play that game with me. You know I didn't want to do that. You seemed alright with the decision."
"Alright? Alright?" She yelled at him. "I cried myself to sleep for a week! I was devastated! You break up with me, and then take off suddenly, possibly to never return! What the hell do you think that did to me?"
"Did you know, last year, that Neville was in love with you?" He locked dead serious eyes with her again. Snow flurries started pushing into the room behind him as he held perfectly still for her answer.
"No. We were a little too busy to worry about stupid bullshit like love." She snapped at him and kicked a piece of lamp at the wall; it shattered to the floor.
"Busy with what exactly? Your Potion's assignment?" He laughed.
"Don't you fucking patronize me." She growled and moved toward him.
"Then enlighten me to activities that were so important that you didn't notice that Neville was falling madly in love with you?" He met her anger, refusing to move away from her. She pulled her shirt aside,
"See that? That little star looking scar on my collarbone?" She yanked the shirt lower to make sure he did. "Right before Easter Break, I had cursed a Slytherin that was hexing a second year Ravenclaw. I got him good, too. But word got back and I was given detention." She let out a bitter laugh. "They made everyone practice unforgivables in detention last year. Some fourth year Slytherin, who had no idea what he was doing, shot a Cruciatus at me." She pointed at the faint pink splotch against her chest, one inch below her collarbone.
"I didn't…" He started.
"You wanted to know, so listen." She yelled over him. "Halloween Feast. The Carrows were starting to get a flair for the dramatic at that point. I was out after curfew; it was the beginning of the Underground. They were gaining on me, and I only had the Room of Requirement to flee to. I made it in, but it scraped up my palms when I fell inside." She turned her hands over to show the white lines across her palms and wrists from the event. His eyes quickly glanced over them in the same intense way they had this summer. And just like this summer he seemed to categorize them, but not say a word. "They bled forever."
He took a step toward her, and she took a step back. He moved to touch her and she moved out of his reach again. She couldn't let him touch her, if he touched her all her anger would dissolve, and she was still so very, very angry. She met eyes with him for a moment and then continued.
"The second week of school. It hadn't stopped raining since we got on the Hogwarts Express. Like the school knew the three of you weren't going to be there so it was going to punish us. I was running down a hallway, trying to get out of the blast range of a Slytherin seventh year. I tripped and bashed my knee against the floor. He caught up with me and gave me this." She pulled up the right sleeve on her shirt to expose the small, rounded, raised, white mark. Shaking and silent his fingers twitched against his side, he wanted to touch her. His quiet anger was still staining his cheeks red, but he didn't seem to be heaving with rage anymore. She dropped her shirt and took a steadying breath.
"It wasn't just gloom and annoyance. There was a war going on everywhere, Harry. Especially at Hogwarts. We were trying to learn, and then watch our backs the entire time. They were kidnapping students, regularly. We had to get the students out. We had to start the Underground to make sure no one died. It was getting that serious at the end there." She reached for her wand and flicked it quickly, her hair and eyes morphing into black and green. "This is what I looked like for almost an entire year."
"Ginny." He whispered. She quickly shook her hair out of the transformation back into its regular knotted red mess.
"And it was Neville that was there for me. It was Neville that was patching me up. It was Neville that was next to my bed in the hospital wing when I passed out from the exhaustion of it all. It was Neville that did my homework for me when I had to sneak into Ravenclaw Tower to get students out. It was Neville that was there for me, Harry. We formed something, some bond that isn't definable. So maybe that's why I seem like such a bloody stranger to you. You have no idea what happened to me last year." She took a breath at the astonished look that crossed his face. "Turns out you don't know me at all."
"I didn't know." He dropped his gaze to the mess all over the floor: glass, snow, water, clothes.
"Of course you didn't!" She snapped. "So did I know that Neville was in love with me then? No, no I didn't. Like I said, we were a little too busy to worry about bullshit like that. But do I know it now? Yes. I do. But it doesn't mean that I love him back. Not like that."
"Ginny," he sighed and ran his hands over his face, suddenly looking much older and much more tired. "Why didn't you tell me any of this?"
"When?" She huffed. "When was I supposed to tell you all this? I can't bring up Neville without you flying into a fit, and remembering that terrible time was triggering flashbacks for me. I've finally managed to shake the nightmares about it. And like it matters. Like it matters at all."
"But it does." He locked eyes with her. "This changes…"
"No it doesn't." She cut over him, her anger still burning in her chest. She hadn't realized she was still so angry about all this, but it fueled her temper and she continued to lash out at him. "All it does is make you feel guilty, and that's another reason I didn't want to tell you. I don't want your pity, Harry. It's over, I've moved on. And being around Neville, and being at school, it was like I finally started to feel normal again. I lost myself this summer, but I'm not lost now. This is me. I don't know if that's someone you want anymore."
He stood in front of her for a long, agonizing moment. His eyes pouring over her, every inch of her, and then he said in a low voice,
"You're right."
She felt all her breath leave her. Her brain started warning her for oxygen, but she held totally still.
"I didn't know you were so close with Neville. I misunderstood your friendship; I thought it was just that. I thought you kept him around because he made you laugh or something. I didn't know it went that deep. And maybe you do love him, maybe that's why you keep torturing me with him, and betraying my confidence, and letting him follow you around. I think you're in love with him."
"I'm not." She choked. "I'm in love with you."
"I don't know, Ginny. How am I supposed to believe that you're in love with me after a story like that? How am I supposed to feel when I hear from Hermione that he's taking you to this Yule ball? That's my right…"
"You're too busy, you told me…" She cut over him, her stomach gave a dangerous flip, her mind continued to hold, frozen in horror of what it was sure was about to happen.
"I told you I didn't know. But you assumed it was no. You asked Neville instead." His voice rose a bit.
"I had to find a date, McGonagall is making me go." Her breath hitched. He clenched his hands into fists again; taking a large breath through is nose and shook his head before taking a furious step toward her.
"So take George, Ginny! Take Seamus! Take Luna for all I fucking care. Don't take Neville! You did this on purpose. You're in love with him, not me." He shouted at her.
"No!" She closed the gap, touching his chest. He quickly moved away from her as she continued to plead, "I didn't do this on purpose. I wasn't thinking."
"That's all you're ever doing; never thinking about me when it comes to him. I think this isn't…."
"Please don't, Harry." She sobbed. She moved toward him again, feeling shards of glass from the lamp cut into her feet. But he quickly backed up away from her; a blast of freezing cold came through the broken window pane next to him. Her heart trembled in her ribcage, vibrating in preparation.
"I think we need some time apart, Ginny. I need to think about this."
"Are…you…breaking…" she stuttered against the flood of tears. He turned into a blurry mess of black and white in her vision, her heart expanded in her chest.
"I don't know." He said, looking away from her. "I need some time." He flicked his wand and her clothes appeared from the corners of the room and hung between them.
Her heart shattered, breaking apart with an agonizing pain that was so fast and acute that all she could do was stand there, in shock. She was frozen to the ground. Her clothes still hung between them, awaiting her to accept them and his decision. With shaking hands she lightly grabbed them and he quickly brushed past her and opened the door.
She turned on her heels to watch him go, needing to see if he was just so angry he needed to leave the room, but praying that he would turn around. He just kept walking. She saw Ron and Hermione frozen at the doorjamb; mouths open in surprise, inches away from each other. Harry pushed past them as well and with a loud CRACK was gone. The tears started to blind her they built so fast and hot in her eyes.
"Ginny," Ron moved toward her and quickly pulled her into a hug. She felt herself sag against him and watched as a blurry Hermione continued to stand in the doorway. The still falling pieces of her shattered heart dropped into her gut and the realization of the single truth, the single spoken secret, the refusal to see what had been right in front of her for over a year hit her hard. She had done this to herself, she had destroyed everything, and for what? For Neville?
"What have I done, Ron?" She sobbed. "What have I done?"
He hugged her closer, almost crushing the air out of her chest as she cried against him, her feet bleeding all over the floor, and she shoved her sweater against her face to muffle the wrecking sobs that ripped from her throat.
"It will be okay, Gin." Ron tried to soothe, and pet her head as he held her against him.
"No, it won't." She cried and then shook violently against a shiver. She looked around the room. Glass all over the floor, a large puddle continuing to form as the snow pelted into the room, Harry's things strewn about the place, the covers twisted and unkempt all over the bed. She wasn't welcome here anymore, and her stomach churned. "I have to go."
"You are far too upset to leave. Just stay until you calm down." Ron cautioned her.
"I can't stay here. I don't belong here anymore." She moved away from his arms, hiccupping against her tears as she slowly moved across the floor.
"Ginny don't say that." Ron called out to her.
Hermione continued to stay completely still right outside the door. Frozen into shock Hermione's wide brown eyes took her in for a moment before Ginny turned from her and stood in the middle of the living room. With a final shaky breath she envisioned the dank, dirty Hog's Head and turned with a CRACK.
"Weasley?" Aberforth called out to her when she landed, a tearful, bleeding mess in the center of his bar.
"C…c…can you open the….pass…passageway?" She stuttered on her tears.
"Are you in some kind of trouble? Why are you bleeding, and crying? Where are your shoes?" He dropped the rag he was wiping up the bar with and gave her a hard look.
"P…p…please." She sucked in a hard breath, holding onto it so she didn't burst into another fit in front of him.
"Alright." He reluctantly opened the portrait so she could shuffle down the long, dark passageway. It was still early; almost the entire school was in the Great Hall for breakfast. She moved along all the back passageways and hallways until she made it to the common room. The Fat Lady took one look at her and swung open without even asking for the password.
Three fourth years that were hanging out on the couches by the fire abruptly stopped when they saw her carefully hobble into the room. She didn't even glance to see who it was, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. She hit the stairs and heard them whisper to each other,
"She looks terrible. Didn't she just come from St. Mungo's?"
"To visit Harry, right? At least that's what everyone is saying."
"Do you think he's dead?"
"Don't be stupid, Bethany!"
She closed the door behind herself, moved across the room, carefully laid herself down upon her bed, flicked her wand to close the curtains on her four-poster, and willed the tears to come again. But there weren't any. She was empty now. She clutched her clothes closer to her chest and looked into the blackness of the curtains until she couldn't tell if her eyes were open or closed anymore.
~*~
"Ginny?" Hermione's hesitant voice called out to her from behind the darkness. She continued to just stare into it. She had no idea how much time had passed. She was sure she'd heard noise downstairs at one point, then a bell, maybe two; it could be night for all she cared. "I'm going to open the curtain."
A small sliver of light filtered into her darkness and she turned her eyes toward it as Hermione swam into view. Her eyes burned, like she might have been keeping them open this whole time. Hermione slowly pulled the curtain back until she was exposed to the cold air of the room. Next to Hermione another shape started to form and she picked out blonde hair and a slight frown.
"You're bleeding, Ginny." Luna said. "Let me take a look at that."
She continued to lay there, motionless on the bed as Luna threw open another curtain on her bed and started to work on her feet. Luna gently pulled her socks off, and then she could feel the tiny shards of lamp come out of her feet, followed instantly by being healed. Hermione just continued to stand there, staring at her.
"Much better," Luna said in a happy voice. "Hermione's told me that you and Harry had a fight."
She closed her eyes as his name fell across her ears. His name hurt more than she cared to admit; she curled further into herself.
"Ginny, I…" Hermione started and then faltered.
"I'm sure I don't need to remind you of this Ginny, but Harry does have a bit of a temper. I'm sure it was nothing. No need to be so upset." Luna smiled and sat next to her on the bed. She forced open her eyes despite the stabbing pain they were giving her.
"He broke up with me, Luna." She croaked and Hermione took a fluttering breath.
"No, he said he needed to think. That's not breaking up." Hermione quietly said. Ginny turned her eyes up to Hermione, she was startlingly white.
"Eavesdropping?" She croaked.
"You two were yelling so loudly. I've never heard Harry sound that mean before, at least not to you, Ginny. We were worried, and then we…" Hermione faltered.
"Eavesdropping is very rude Hermione, you should apologize." Luna said matter-of-factly. "But if Hermione's right then he didn't break up with you. Just a fight."
"I don't think so, Luna." She pushed herself up from the bed, leaving her filthy clothes behind and adjusting her shirt again, his shirt, her chest fluttered with a warning of another round of tears. She made it to the bathroom door and peeled the shirt off, down to just her bra and jeans now. She tossed it into the middle of the room and quietly said without looking back, "Will you return this to him, Hermione?"
"Of course." Hermione answered. She nodded once and shut the door behind herself, sliding to the floor.
"Did you make sure to hide the razors?" She heard Luna ask.
"Luna," Hermione sighed, but then almost too low for Ginny to hear added, "yes."
She curled up on the floor and pulled down a towel to use as a blanket before she surrendered back to the blackness.
~*~
She waited until she was sure the room was empty to take her long awaited shower and curl back up in her bed again, curtains closed, staring into the darkness, waiting. Waiting for what she wasn't sure. Everything still felt raw. Her body ached from the vigil she'd kept at Harry's bedside, her mind pounded with hunger and sleep deprivation, but her chest…her heart, it felt so raw that she couldn't summon the will to do much else but lay there. She kept hoping that it wasn't real, but she had enough clarity to know it was. The door cracked open and she heard a single set of footprints cross the floor.
"Ginny?" Hermione whispered. "Are you awake?"
"Yes." She flatly responded.
"I'm…" Hermione stopped for a moment and she heard her sniffle a little. "I'm so sorry, Ginny." She finished sounding very close to tears her voice muffled but the still closed curtains.
"Don't be." She exhaled and closed her eyes.
"I told Harry those things. I told him that I was worried about you and Neville. I didn't know what you two had been through last year. I didn't know that you had such a bond with him. This could have all been avoided if I'd just…I'm as bad as Lavender." Hermione sniffled and then slowly pulled back the curtain.
Ginny blinked a bit at the light and then looked into Hermione's face, puffy and red with tears. She didn't have the will to get up, but she knew Hermione was wrong.
"It's not your fault. I did this to myself." She murmured and closed her eyes, and took a breath despite the stabbing sensation next to her heart.
"No, I didn't have all the facts before I started making assumptions. I know better than that." Hermione took a hitched breath. "I didn't think he'd break up with you, Ginny. I just thought it would make you two talk about it. All you two ever do is fight, but nothing gets resolved, he's been grumbling about this for months now."
"So now he's broken up with me?" She drawled out, turning away from Hermione on the bed.
"No. It's a break, not a break up." Hermione quickly responded. "Just give him some time."
"I don't think that's going to matter. He said we're strangers to each other." She told her pillow, and felt Hermione's fingers lightly touch her arm.
"Don't give up that easily." She cautiously started. "If I'd given up that easily I'd still be crying in my room over your brother. You have to take the hard times with the good, no one ever said love was easy."
"Ron's always been in love with you. So it's easier for you to say something like that." Ginny sighed. She wanted so badly to believe Hermione, but it seemed far too easy. Nothing between her and Harry was easy, she couldn't hold onto this false hope now. "Harry didn't even know I existed until my fifth year. Please just leave me alone."
"He overreacted, Ginny. He was too angry for his own good. You told him again and again that you had no feelings for Neville. He's made a mistake. Just wait." Hermione pleaded to her back, her cold fingers wrapping lightly around her arm.
"Just leave me alone, please." She groaned into her bed and held her breath against the tears that threatened to come up again.
"I'm sorry." Hermione whispered and stood up. Ginny turned toward her then, and shook her head,
"This wasn't your fault. It was mine."
She closed the curtains with a flick of her wand and settled back down into the darkness. She heard Hermione fretting about, fidgeting and tapping her foot a bit, and then there were footsteps and a softly closed door.
~*~
She couldn't be sure, but she was almost positive that she stayed up the entire night, drifting in and out of consciousness. When the sun broke through a tiny slit in her curtains she willed herself to sit up. Sunday. She'd scheduled a Quidditch practice this morning. She almost started crying at the idea of having to go out and practice. Going out and doing anything meant that yesterday had actually happened and she wasn't about to wake up in the hospital next to a still sleeping Harry.
Harry. Her chest contracted, the empty space where her heart used to be gave a useless pump, and she shook her head, disgusted and depressed. She could still hear Hermione's deep breathing as she slept. It would be less painful if she snuck out now. That way she wouldn't have to face Hermione's almost agonizing optimism that things were going to turn around. Ginny knew they weren't. As she had lain in the black hole she'd turned her bed into she knew that she had partook in a cardinal sin. Harry's trust was not something to take lightly. He might never forgive her. And the white-hot anger that she felt toward her own selfish, childish stupidity was only matched by the bitter taste of losing what she had always wanted. Her chest cavity gave a painful thump and she closed her eyes for a moment, defeated. She had an inclination that this feeling was never going to go away.
She pushed up from the four-poster. She had to clear her head. She knew there was no escaping the thoughts, but she wanted to forget about how angry he looked, and how hard she had cried for at least ten minutes. Only ten minutes of her day, and then she'd allow herself to sink back into her purgatory. She carefully made her way out of the dorm, slung on her jumper and trainers, and made a beeline for the Pitch. It would be two hours before any of her team was supposed to show up, plenty of time to clear her head so practice was useful.
Slipping across the icy snow she made it down to the locker room and threw open the door. The weather was horrible, the kind of cold that made your bones hurt. While it wasn't currently snowing the dark clouds hanging at the peaks of the mountains were a warning. She summoned her broom without looking at it, because looking at it would remind her who had bought it, and moved out into the frozen Pitch. She shot a warming charm at herself and with a few steps onto the crunchy snow covered grass kicked off from the ground and shot up into the sky.
She flew. She flew until her eyes started to sting and her hands seemed frozen to the broom. She flew until she was panting with exertion and couldn't feel her face. She flew until her mind cleared of the buzz, and the sorrow, and the pain. She flew until all that encompassed her mind was white clarity, empty and uncomplicated. It was as if she had finally taken a breath. It felt like she had been holding her breath since she was eleven in that moment when the diary had first written back to her. With utter clarity she recalled the memory.
She had almost flown into her room, red and breathy with tears, horribly embarrassed and also feeling hurt. She'd dug through her trunk until she found the small black book. A book that she hadn't told anyone she owned. She owned so little, this extra book with all the blank pages was something all her own. She had wondered if her Mum had snuck it in as a present for her starting school. But she didn't want to alert her Mum about it just in case she hadn't and she'd have to give it back. She needed to vent, she needed to write down all her silly, painful, and sometimes overwhelming emotions somewhere so she didn't have to keep carrying them within herself. She found a self inking quill, it promptly exploded all over her hands and she had let out a frustrated moan. Was everything she owned broken? She looked at the book again; it was pristine, the only non-hand-me-down book she'd every lay her hands on. She found another quill and angrily wrote down:
I just want to scream! Why does this have to be so hard? Why must my life feel like a curse? Why can't I control myself? One moment of embarrassment and I look like a horrible tomato. That won't get me anywhere. I hate my life.
And then, to her shock, the ink had sunk into the page, sucked down as if the book was drinking it. She had gasped in an enormous breath and held it. In a quick slanted writing it slowly bled onto the page:
Tell me more.
She jerked to a stop in the middle of the Pitch. The diary? She hadn't really thought about the diary in such a long time. Tom, yes, frequently. But the diary? She hung mid-air, panting and frozen and her mind slowly started to clutter and cloud back up again, all the conflicting emotions and memories shouting for attention, as the thought of the diary sank back down below the surface. She shook herself out and scanned the Pitch.
In black and blue, sitting in the middle of the icicle laden stands, Luna gave her a big wave. With an internal groan she waved back and made her way over. Luna wasn't going to go anywhere unless she was heard. She knew exactly what was about to come out of her friends mouth and steeled herself for the coming onslaught. She wasn't going to cry today. Tonight, maybe, but not today.
"Ginny!" Luna called out to her and stood, a perfect circle of defrosted bench from Luna's own warming charm coming into view as she flew closer and stopped.
"Hi, Luna. What's wrong?" She jumped on the assault. Better to try and control the conversation from the beginning so she could keep the upper hand.
"Battling a case of the Whopples I'm afraid. I think Headmistress McGonagall passed them along to me. They hate the cold, you see. I figured this was the best way to stave them off. You looked amazing out there, flying." Luna gave her a genuine smile.
"Thanks." She landed on the stands and stood in front of Luna. "Anything I can do? About the Whopples?"
"No, I'm afraid. You just have to suffer through them until they jump onto the next host. It's been so distracting; I can barely concentrate on my studies. Did you finish that Charms assignment?" Luna shook her head a bit; the bobbles on her knitted cap went swinging about and then settled back down.
"I haven't done any assignments yet." Ginny crossed her arms over her chest.
"That's right, you've been away. Sorry, Whopples." Luna shrugged. Ginny felt a tiny smile start to form. "Perhaps we can work on it tonight, together in the library?"
"That'd be great." Ginny nodded and grabbed the handle of her broom again, trying to show Luna that she wanted to end the conversation.
"Are you feeling any better? Since yesterday?" Luna fixed her large silver eyes upon her and Ginny deflated. Here it was. She looked at the ground, unsure of if she even wanted to acknowledge the question. "I didn't mean to pry, just wanted to make sure I healed your feet correctly."
"Oh," Ginny shot her head back up. "My feet are fine. Thanks."
"It's alright, Ginny." Luna leaned forward and whispered, "I'm not going to ask you about Harry."
"Thanks." Ginny exhaled. Her breath broke as a giant cloud of white around her head. "You might be the only one today."
"I think people will be nicer than you think. I talked to Hermione this morning, told her to just leave you be while you sorted this out." Luna gave her a bracing smile.
"Thanks, Luna. She was getting to be a little too much. I can't deal with her today." Ginny grumbled and kicked at some icicles on the benches.
"That's understandable. I can't look at Hermione without thinking about Harry either. They're almost inseparable in my mind." Luna looked off into the distance, and Ginny felt the empty place where her heart used to beat give a horrible lurch. She hadn't thought of it that way, now there was another way to torment herself.
"Right." She let out a long breath and gripped her broom tighter.
"Just give Harry a couple of days. I'm sure that's all this will take to fix back up." Luna shook her head again, bobbles swinging around, and Ginny leaned against the frozen railings of the stands.
"I don't think it's that easy, Luna." She frowned.
"Gryffindors." Luna shook her head and laughed a little. "You lot always think in black and white. You know the universe is made up of mostly grey? This is a very grey situation. Stop seeing black, Ginny." Luna gave her a pat and made her way back down, out of the stands. She called over her shoulder, "I'll see you tonight!"
"Yeah." She distractedly called after her, but her words had struck something deep in her mind. Black. She had surrounded herself with black; the black of her curtains, the black of her mood, the black of her thoughts, the black on her hands. She looked down quickly but the ink wasn't there and she let out a charged breath.
"Oi! Why the hell would you be up this early?" Seamus called out to her from the Pitch. She looked over the railing down at him, bundled up and wearing his warm-ups, holding his broom.
"To see how badly you all have slacked off since I've been gone." She called back down and Seamus gave her a small laugh and wave of his arm, as if to imply she had no idea what she was talking about. "Rest of the team in there?"
"Just waiting for you, Captain!" He yelled back up, and then jogged back into the locker room. She took another large, frozen, cleansing breath and started down toward her team.
~*~
"Run it again!" She called out. Her team seemed to sag on their brooms and their groans were swept up into the building storm. Snow was starting to come down in a light dusting as they all moved into position on the Pitch. Dean flew over for a moment and gave her a long look. "What?" She snapped.
"We've been at it for hours. It's snowing. The next match isn't until after the break. You have a mutiny brewing, Ginny." He looked over his shoulder and she saw the rest of the team whispering to each other and nodding and frowning.
"We'll never be the…" she started and Dean cut her immediately off.
"You already got on the Harpies. You can calm down, Ginny. For Merlin's sake your hands are blue!" He pointed down to her ungloved hands and she saw that they were too white, the nail beds looking bruised.
"Fine." She shook her head. Dean sagged with relief as well and she called out past him. "Pack up! We're done for today!"
"Took her long enough!" Seamus' voice rose above the grumbling din and she lowered herself to the ground, still aware of Dean right next to her.
"Everything alright, Ginny?" He quietly asked and she shoved one of her frozen hands into her jacket.
"Perfectly fine." She lied and Dean made a noise of disbelief in his throat. "Just say it."
"I know you better than that. Everything go alright with Harry at St. Mungo's?" He held the door open for her and she looked down at her feet as she moved past him.
"He's fine." She quickly answered.
"Ginny," Dean said, his voice echoing in the hallway. He'd said it in such a nice way, such a knowing way. She looked up at him for a moment, knowing that her face would tell him more than he would ever need to know.
"Yes?"
"Nevermind." He locked eyes with her, nodded, and then moved down the hallway past her.
She fell against the bricks of the locker room wall and took a few shuttering breaths, trying to compose herself. She had been expecting the questions about Harry. She just hadn't expected everyone to be so sympathetic. She felt a wave of tears start to form and clenched her jaw. Not today. Tonight, alone, in her bed she'd cry again, but not today. She needed a distraction.
For the first time since she'd set foot on campus she was excited about the prospect of an entire day of assignments.
~*~
Past the probing eyes, through the hushed common room, up the stairs she paused at her door. She was still frozen through; her nail beds were still a horrible purple color. She wouldn't have been surprised if she'd shook ice out of her hair at this point. She was wary of a Hermione assault and paused, with her hand on the knob, when she heard Hermione's voice moan out,
"Ron."
At first she gave the door a disgusted look, wondering if she would be mentally scarred forever by what she would walk in on, but then Hermione's voice cut through the door again.
"Well talk to him!"
She sighed; it wasn't anything like that. She went to turn the knob and just walk in when the next words stopped her cold.
"You listen to me Harry Potter! Don't walk away!"
She pulled out her wand and shot a silencing charm at the door and then slowly cracked it open and snuck right in. The door closed silently behind her and she leaned against it, barely breathing, as she saw Hermione sitting on the floor in their room facing the fire. Hermione's back was to her and the fireplace was roaring with green flames.
"He walked away!" Hermione indignantly shouted.
"At least he just walked away. How many times do you reckon you can Reparo something before it just refuses to go back together?" Ron's voice sighed from the fire.
"Why would you do that?" Hermione shifted slightly on the floor.
"Because SOMEONE," Ron yelled out, "has decided that he wants to continue breaking all our plates!"
"I'll buy new fucking plates!" Harry's angry voice yelled, far from the fireplace, it almost sounded like an echo.
"Break your own shit! Don't break the stuff we share!" Ron yelled back at him and then grumbled, "He's been like this since he came back. Almost two days of this, Hermione. I can't take much more. And I'm supposed to be here with him all week?"
"Ron you have to talk to him." Hermione pleaded.
"And say what? 'Don't worry mate, she's just being a silly bint.' That's my sister! I can't say that about my sister!" Ron snapped. "I knew this was a horrible idea."
"Don't say that, you know they're perfect for each other." Hermione chastised him.
"When they get along! When they aren't I'd take on a Death Eater just to be clean of the situation. At least Death Eaters don't shatter all our GLASSES because I said Ginny's name!" Ron yelled it out again. There was a long string of barely audible cussing to be heard from Harry, and Hermione sighed.
"How is it going? Really? Just tell me the truth." Hermione murmured.
"He's a wreck. Temper is out of control; he breaks things without thinking about it. Quite annoying and terrifying when your teacup explodes in your hand because your best mate can't keep it together. He might be cracking up. I don't know. I'm just trying to make sure he doesn't go on some killing rampage." Ron grumbled.
"You don't mean that." Hermione hissed, sitting up straight on the floor. "You think he's cracking up?"
"Who knows, Hermione? To tell you the truth I've been expecting it." Ron sighed and then started in a very low voice, a secret, Ginny felt herself lean forward to hear better. "He took out the map again."
"But that's a good thing!" Hermione exclaimed.
"I don't know. He's just brooding. Staring at the map. Pacing. Breaking things. If he starts going after things in my room I'm going to have to restrain him!" Ron's voice reached back to normal pitch. "How's Gin-bug?"
"Despondent. She went directly up to her room; she must have been bleeding for two hours before I got up here. Her socks were all damp with blood, it messed her sheets. I cleaned it all up. She's just…" Hermione dropped off.
"Gone?" Ron offered.
"Yeah." Hermione softly answered.
"So is Harry. How do we fix this, Hermione?" Ron exhaled loudly.
"Can we?" Hermione slumped down again out of her posture. "Maybe it's just not our place. Maybe we should just let this run its course."
"But what if they don't get back together?" Ron anxiously asked.
"I don't know." Hermione shrugged. "Neither of us can pick sides. It would be horribly awkward."
"Maybe I should just kick his arse?" Ron offered.
"Ron," Hermione laughed then sighed. "Look after him. Don't let him do anything too stupid."
"Look after Ginny, eh? Make sure she doesn't do anything drastic." Ron softly said and then just as quietly, "Love you."
"I love you too." Hermione moved to touch the fire and then the green flames burnt out. Hermione pushed up from the floor and turned around. She jumped at first, hands flying to her face. "Ginny?"
"Last time I checked." She dryly answered.
"How long have you been there?" Hermione moved toward her.
"Long enough. Maybe I should buy Ron some glasses for Christmas?" Ginny shrugged out of her Captain's jacket and quickly moved across the floor toward her bed.
"Ginny, this is good." Hermione moved over toward her own trunk.
"If you say so." She refused to make eye contact with her and instead focused on her hands. They were starting to get that horrible tingly prickly feeling as they thawed. She had overdone it. She'd be no good to the Harpies if she froze her fingers off.
"Maybe you should write to him. Or Floo him?" Hermione suggested and snatched something off her bed. Ginny looked at Hermione's hands for only a moment before Hermione threw her Draught of Peace potions back into her trunk. So Hermione thought she was about to crack as well.
"I'm fine you know?" She crossed her arms and glared at Hermione. "I'm not going to kill myself. You don't have to hide everything from me. Besides if I wanted to kill myself I would just use my wand and you haven't taken that away from me."
"Ginny don't say that!" Hermione gasped.
"And I'm not Flooing him, or writing to him. He said he needed time. He needed space. I'll at least do this part right." She grumbled.
"That's the last thing he needs! He needs you! He needs you to talk to him and fight with him and work this out. He needs you, Ginny. He's a different person when he's with you." Hermione moved toward her, attempting to touch her. Ginny stumbled back fast, desperately trying to avoid her hands. She bumped against her bed and fell back a bit. Hermione pulled away instantly, looking both horrified and hurt.
"Hermione, I need you to just leave it. Stop trying to fix this. Some things aren't meant to be fixed." Ginny managed and pushed back up from the bed.
"You don't believe that. I can see it in your eyes, Ginny." Hermione quietly said.
"I know." She whispered. "But you didn't see his."
Ginny pushed past her, closed the door to the bathroom, set the shower to scorching and jumped in, clothes and trainers still on. She pulled her knees up, rested her head against them and let herself cry. Well, at least she'd made it to the afternoon.
~*~
Author's Note:
TOW Gunner – thanks again for all your tireless work! I fear to think where this story would be without your help.