A/N I would like to thank codyesh2 for the kind words left in a review. As usual, italics indicate a memory, except for the first paragraph, recapping last chapter.
Chapter 26: It's Not My Fault
"Sorry I'm late."
Harry now thought of another reason why he felt a feeling in the pit of his stomach; He'd forgotten, all along he was just content with dismissing her and going along with his everyday life, he wasn't going to let his heartache interfere with his life. Not now. But all of that had been for nothing.
Harry looked over to the door of the now silent compartment, to see something he had been trying to avoid, planning on avoiding for the rest of the year. 'More like someone' he thought to himself; so much for avoiding each other. Maybe they still could avoid each other; it certainly wasn't unheard of, remembering Ron and Hermione's fight during his sixth year.
Shaking his head at his own stupidity for actually thinking that they could avoid bumping into each other, being Head Girl and Boy, he straightened slightly and slid across on the seat, towards the window, making a space for Ginny next to him.
She walked in, trunk in one hand, pieces of parchment in the other. She glanced at the seat, then up at him, and back to the seat. The occupants of the compartment looked on in silence before, rather reluctantly; she sat down next to him.
"Glad you could make it." Harry growled quietly, though loud enough for only her to hear. She looked up from the pieces of parchment she had been looking at, and up into his face, which she noticed was quite gaunt looking than it had been a fortnight ago. 'I did the right thing, it was for the best,' she chanted to herself for a few minutes, and then pursed her lips and began the meeting, though she knew that she didn't believe a word of them.
"Is everyone here?" She asked forcefully. The occupants of the compartment nodded, though her question was merely a rhetoric one. Without waiting for a response, she ploughed into introductions and the instructions, entailing passwords to the common rooms, a schedule for patrolling the corridors, list of banned items and other important things before extracting a stack of parchment from her trunk.
"This includes a list of all of the banned items and out-of-bounds areas, as well as curfews." She said, passing around a sheet for each prefect.
"Finally, there will be meetings held in the Astronomy Tower during the first of every month, beginning next month. Any questions?" she finished. "You may now-" she began, allowing them to leave to enjoy the rest of the train ride, until someone interrupted.
"Also, before you go, you all know from experience that you are expected to patrol the train every so often, please do not forget. You may now go. Have a nice trip." Harry said unemotionally, flashing a brief smile to the prefects before standing and extracting himself and his trunk from the compartment, Ron and Hermione following not long after. Ron glared at her for forcing him to choose between his best friend and his sister, and fled the compartment, whilst Hermione sent a sympathetic smile towards her before leaving.
Ginny bit her lip, to stop her chin from trembling. She watched as the prefects piled out, and then as the door finally slid shut, leaving her to bask in her loneliness. Only then did she allow herself to let go of her emotions, as she slid off of the seat and onto the floor where she sobbed quietly. She remembered the two weeks she had spent at Shell Cottage with her brother and her sister-in-law. She couldn't really say that it had been enjoyable, because it hadn't, but she had learnt a lot about herself so she knew and felt the change in herself.
"Goodbye Harry." Ginny said before throwing the floo powder into the fire.
Seconds later Ginny stepped out of the fireplace at Shell Cottage, tears streaming down her face.
"Bill? Fleur?" She yelled out from the living room.
"Ginny? Is that you?" She heard Bill call out from the kitchen.
"Hi!"
"Hey Gin! To what do we owe this visit?" Bill asked, hugging her and then holding her out at a distance to see her face.
"Oh.
Um no reason."
"Which is?"
"Oh,
um . . . I got in a fight with mum, as you wouldn't know;
apparating out of there with your wife like Voldemort himself was
there. Anyway,
we both said some nasty thing to each other, so I left."
"And that's why you're here?"
"Actually. No. I would have . . . um . . . I would have stayed with Harry, but I . . . I think I did something really bad. Unforgivably bad." Ginny said, her voice becoming drenched with sobs.
"Gin . . . what did you do?" Bill asked his voice full of concern.
"I . . . um . . . I . . . broke up with Harry." Ginny burst into tears at the end of that and clung to Bill like she was about to fall over a cliff.
"Ssh . . . it's okay." Bill said after a few minutes, stroking the back of her head gently.
Bill lead her to the spare bedroom and tucked her into the bed, clothes and all, and sat with her until she fell asleep, when he went and told Fleur everything, before apparating to the Burrow, to let his mother know where Ginny was.
A few days later, when, Ginny woke up, she was surprised to see Hermione sitting on the end of the bed, reading a book, as usual.
"Hi." Ginny said timidly.
"Hi. How are you?" Hermione asked; closing the book and placing it back on the bookshelf.
"Okay."
Hermione glared slightly.
"I'm fine, honestly."
"Ginny, don't you lie to me. You're not fine. You have bags under your eyes, your face is pale from lack of light and your face has tear stains. Now, tell me what's wrong."
"Hermione, you know bloody well what's wrong. I just dumped the love of my life for some stupid reason!" Hermione flinched slightly at the word 'bloody' but let her continue venting.
"Everything will work out fine." Hermione said, not entirely believing it herself.
"No! It won't I ruined everything! We were so happy . . . everything was fine, and then I just let my mother get to me!" Ginny burst into tears suddenly, and cried into Hermione's lap for what could have been hours. Every now and then Bill would poke his head into the room and Hermione would smile at him, and they would both shake their heads.
Soon enough, though, she heard the door to the compartment slide open. Not bothering to look up she said, her voice breaking as she did, "Go away!" Childish as it may be, Ginny didn't care. She couldn't care about anyone except herself at that moment, she was breaking, and she knew that. But she also knew that there was only one person that was able to fix her, and that there was no chance in hell that he would even come near her again unless he had to, let alone help her.
"I'll . . . I'll come back later then . . . . I suppose," said a familiar voice by the door way of the compartment.
"Harry! What are you doing here?" Ginny squeaked awkwardly, wiping the tears from her face, as she stood up and straightened her robes.
"I . . . uh, I forgot Misty," he said, pointing to the owl in its cage in the corner. Sure enough, in the corner of the compartment a raven owl hooted softly from its cage.
"Oh, um . . . I'll get her for you." She said after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence.
"No, it's alright. I can do it." Harry said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly.
"Seriously, it's no trouble . . ." she said, handing the bird to him.
"Uh . . . thanks," he said. Just as he was about to leave Ginny began to speak.
"How've you been Harry?" she asked quietly.
"Let's see." He began bitterly, "I get back from a holiday, only to have my girlfriend break up with me, and then flee before I can ask her why, which left me to brood over her for the next two weeks, before I finally realize that I won't be able to get over her because we will be in each other's company every other night. Tell me, Ginny, if that was you. How would you feel?"
"Harry-"
"Wait a minute. Ginny, you need to decide, am I worth it? Am I worth the fight? Because the way I see it, is that you didn't leave me because of some business with your family. You left me because you couldn't handle it." Harry turned to leave, but was stopped by Ginny.
"Wait! Harry." She called out to him, grabbing the arm of his robes.
Harry turned around slowly taking a deep breath, and looked down into her face. Her warm, brown eyes were ablaze with hunger. She reached out her left arm and placed it behind his neck on the back of his head and pulled his head down to meet hers, where she closed the now minimal space between them, forcing her lips onto his. Surprising both of them, Harry returned the kiss, deepening it, only to have Ginny pull away from him moment later and stand back, creating space between them.
"What was that . . ." Harry said, and Ginny smiled inwardly, glad that she could still make him tick. Then she remembered their argument from before. She had to reconcile with him now, before he really did move on.
"Ginny . . . you broke up with me, remember? You said that-" He said, his hand lingering on his lips for a moment, as if reflecting what just happened.
"I remember what I said! Harry . . . I told you why I did what I did-" she said softly, though breathlessly, before being interrupted by Harry.
"Yeah, you gave me some shoddy reason that you 'didn't want to take the only family I've ever known from me' or some crap like that. I think that's a great reason for leaving me, isn't it? So nothing you did that night did anything that you intended it to. It didn't prevent me from 'losing the only family I've ever known'. You just don't get that by leaving me, you took from me the only family I've ever known."
"But-"
"Ginny, stop toying with my feelings, I told you I loved you, and then you blow it up in my face. Now, you kiss me, but say that we still can't be together. Nothing has ever been easy for us. You know that, and obviously you can't be bothered to fight for it."
"I never said we couldn't be together!
"You didn't have to. I could see it in your eyes. Ginny, we were just living a lie. I can see that now. It just wasn't meant to be" Harry said, pain etched on his face.
"You don't really believe that, do you Harry?"
"Ginny, I don't know what to think anymore."
"But . . ."
"No buts Ginny. I've nothing more to say to you. Goodbye Ginny." Harry made sure to slam the compartment door behind him before he stormed down the hall of the train, back to Hermione and Ron, leaving Ginny to fall to pieces on the ground of the compartment.
A/N Sorry I haven't updated sooner, I told some of you that with the holidays I would have more time to write. Well I was wrong; I was caught up with my social life for once. Anyway, I have decided to add to my Author's Notes recommendations for some really great stories.
Carry You Home by hgfan1111
Hello, Again by iheartbooks
Insanity Runs In The Family by Lea Marie
Losing A Wizard in Two Weeks by TGIF2
The Garnet Snitch by Shadow Dragon
Putting the 'M' In Mystery by missy mee
Hopefully these will supply you will lots of reading material in between updates. Also, in the coming days and weeks, I will be going over previous chapters, fixing them, so more than likely I haven't added another chapter, just changed a previous one, so check them out.