CHAPTER 27

Classes were back to their normal course, holydays were over and all the students were once again at Hogwarts. Harry hadn't been alone with Ginny since he had kissed her, he suspected she was avoiding him. At first he had understood her but it had already been more than two weeks and he was getting angry. She was being childish.

"Good morning, today we'll be studying the Patronus Charm" Harry informed his Gryffindor and Hufflepuff fifth year students. "Who knows what it is?"

"It's a defence charm, it works against Dementors and Lethifolds, it's kind of a spirit guardian" answered Tracy Madley, a Hufflepuff prefect.

"Very good, Miss Madley, but there is one more function, a quite useful one. Does anybody know which the other use is for Patronuses? I'll give you a clue: Albus Dumbledore invented it and taught to the members of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Communication!" Teddy shouted the answer startling his classmates.

"That's right, Lupin! For those of you who didn't know, Patronuses can be used to send messages with the caster's voice. It was a very useful and secure way of communication during the last war. Today we're going to learn how to do it."

"But, professor, that's incredible advance magic! It's not even tested at the NEWTs!" a Gryffindor student said between desire to be able to cast it and concern of not being able to.

"Yes it is. I don't really expect all of you to be able to cast it but, I have confidence that some of you can at least make an incorporeal one. The Patronus is a positive force so to be able to invoke it you'll have to concentrate your entire mind in one happy memory. The incantation is easy, 'Expecto Patronum', and the wand movement is just circular, the difficult part consist in keeping yourself focus in the memory you chose, especially at a moment of danger."

"Professor if it's so difficult and you even think that most of us won't be able to cast it, why are we even studying it?" asked Nick Davies from Hufflepuff.

"Because I think it's important for you to learn. You might not be able to cast it now but with a lot of practice you will. If I'm honest, I wasn't planning on teaching it but it's my favourite charm and I know many wizards and witches that at your age were able to cast it."

Harry knew he was asking too much of his students. It was one of the most difficult charms that existed and it required a lot of oneself. However, he had decided that it was a really interesting one and once he showed his students what it consisted on, they would be delighted. Besides, nowadays, happy thoughts were all he was having.

"Professor is it true that you learnt how to do a Patronus at the age of thirteen?" his daughter Emma asked.

"That's right, Nott, my teacher back then Remus Lupin," he said winking an eye at his godson. "taught it to me after I begged him. And then I passed that knowledge to those who joined the so called 'Dumbledore's Army', or DA for short, that my two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and I created together in fifth year. In fact, Miss Nott, your mother was a member, she was able to cast a corporeal Patronus, a horse, and she is a year younger than me, so she was only fourteen. A year younger than all of you, so, you see, I think you'll make it."

"It's not a horse, it's a doe. I remember it well because she used to cast it when I was young, I used to love it." Emma corrected him.

At first Harry was a little confused, he remembered perfectly well Ginny's horse running in the Room of Requirements, she had been one of the first ones to achieve a corporeal Patronus. Suddenly he remembered that Patronuses could change its shape, Tonks' had done it. It made his spirit rise. If Ginny's Patronus was now a doe he was sure it had something to do with him, Harry's own Patronus was a deer, that must meant something good.

"Oh, well, it could have changed; it's not common but not impossible. Let's start!"

The students followed Harry's instructions and started working on their Patronuses. By the end of the class only a few had been able to make a weak mist and they all were all exhausted. It was a very tiring charm, even more if one was not used to it, so Harry rewarded them with pieces of chocolate.

After finishing his last class of the day, Harry had only one thought in mind: Ginny's Patronus. He had to get rid of the doubt, was it because of him? Was it still a doe? With those questions in mind he went to the Quidditch pitch, where he knew Ginny would be ending her flying lessons to the first years.

He arrived when the students were making their way back to the castle. Ginny was gathering the broomstick that belonged to the school and putting them away in the shed. Harry followed her and when he was close enough he spoke, startling her who hadn't seen him.

"Cast your Patronus." He ordered her without an explanation.

"What?" Ginny gaze at him confused. This was a strange, out of the blue command.

"Cast your Patronus." He repeated looking straight into her eyes.

"Why?"

"I want to see it."

"I don't think I can do it anymore, it's been years since I last did." She tried to avoid executing his command. Ginny knew which was the animal that would appear if she casted it and she didn't want Harry to see it.

"Try it." He kept on insisting, he wasn't going to let her slip away this time, he needed to know.

"Expecto Patronum." She said weakly just to satisfy Harry and be able to end this weird encounter. Just as she wanted, nothing came out of her wand.

"That doesn't count, it was weak. Do it with attitude, I know you can."

"Expecto Patronum." She once again said, with a little more strength but not giving enough power to it. That time a silver mist was seen.

"Come on, Ginny! I know you can do it! Come on!" Harry exclaimed with such enthusiasm that Ginny was inspired by it. He really could make her do whatever he wanted.

"Expecto Patronum!" she shouted thinking about that kiss Harry had given her few weeks ago. A brilliant silver doe came out of her wand and surrounded both of them. Harry laugh happily, in some place of her heart, Ginny still loved him.

"I love you." Harry said before kissing her. Ginny didn't kiss him back this time; she stayed still without moving her lips. It took everything of her to resist but she had to preserve herself.

"I told you last time, Harry, I don't want you to kiss me anymore." She said coldly.

"Ginny, please, give me a chance. I promise you I won't hurt you again, I promise I'm going to take care of you and love you like you deserve. I promise I won't hurt you like I did before and much less like Theodore did."

"Don't you get it, Harry? You hurt me way more that he did. What Theodore did were just beatings. If he hadn't done what he did to my children, I think, if he asked me nicely and he wanted to change, I would get back together with him."

"I can't believe you are still saying those kinds of stuff after how he treated you." Harry said wit barely contained anger. It wasn't fair for her to compare him to a guy like Nott.

"And you think you treated me better? First, you broke up with me at Dumbledore's funeral to keep me safe, or at least that was what you said. I didn't agree with you but, I understood, I understood your stupid and noble reasons. Then, you came back to Hogwarts for the last battle and went to the Forbidden Forest knowing you were going to die and didn't even say goodbye to me. You made me believe you were dead! My heart broke into a million little pieces. I couldn't breathe when I saw you motionless on Hagrid's arms. Lastly, you made me believe we were back together only to abandon me a few days later. One moment you were next to me in bed and the next one I was alone. I didn't know a thing about you, you left me broken-hearted and pregnant at a time a needed you. My brother had just died! And I had seen you dead too! I needed you there, I needed to know that the man I loved most in the world was alive, that it hadn't been my imagination that you had come back to life. Harry, you hurt me more than anyone has ever had." Ginny wiped away the tears that had fallen trhough her face while she told him everything. Harry felt his throat get closed and his own eyes filled with tears. He had known he had hurt her but, hearing the love of his life tell him all that with so much sorrow, destroyed him in a way he hadn't expected.

"I'm so sorry, Ginny. I didn't think it would cause you so much pain when I left. Forgive me. I wasn't fine back then. I felt so guilty for all the deaths, Tonks, Lupin, Colin, Dobby, and especially Fred's. And everybody thought of me as a hero, which was the last thing I felt like. I had become a killer. I knew Voldemort deserved it and that it was my destiny, and that I wasn't really the one who threw the killing curse but, I couldn't stand it. I had nightmares every single night. And you were so down and I felt like I made things worse and then that moment came when I felt the worse piece of trash in the world. That night, when we slept together, I felt like I had taken advantage of you, I took advantage of your sad condition and I felt like I had used you, I wasn't gentle with you… I used you to unload all the anger I had against the world and myself, I used you just to feel something different from fury, misery, desolation. And even if I also did it because I loved you, I don't think it was the perfect moment for our first time. Ginny, you deserved so much better and I was aware of it." He explained letting his tears run free on his face.

"Harry, you didn't use me. I wanted that too, you know it. You didn't… rape me" she said trying to make him see that he didn't have to feel guilty about how there first time went.

"I know! I'm not saying I raped you! Merlin, Ginny! I would never make you do something like that!" he said feeling terrible for letting Ginny had that thought. "I'm just saying that it wasn't what you deserved, I didn't show you the loved I felt for you… I know you did, I felt it and it made me feel even worse. You deserved something else, someone better."

"I wanted you, I've always wanted you, Harry, no one else."

"Gin, I want you to know that I loved you and still do. At that moment I wasn't ready, it took me years to come to terms with everything that happened back then. Even nowadays I sometimes have those feeling guilty 'attacks', but I can now overcome them. I'm ready, Ginny, I think I can be that man you deserve, I can give you every part of me, I want to show you how much I love you. I want to do it right this time. Trust me, Ginny." He ended with a begging tone.

"I wish I could… but I don't know if ever will again."

"Don't say that, please" he begged wiping away his tears.

"Harry, I was after you for years, and you only came to realised I existed in my fifth year! And then, I only had you for just a few weeks. When you broke u with me that first time, a little part of me thought that if I was prettier, more intelligent or funnier, you wouldn't have left me. That keeping me safe was just an excuse to have an easy escape of our relationship."

"Ginny, I swear that it wasn't…" she ignored him and continued talking.

"And then you abandoned me for a second time. You demonstrated that insecure part of me was right, that I wasn't enough for the great Harry Potter. My fear that you would never love as much as I loved you became true."

Ginny kissed him softly not being able to avoid her desire and then left the shed. Harry cried alone like few time he had done in his entire life. He had lost the love of his life exclusively because of him, it was his fault. If he had only talk to her back then, or if he had come back sooner, so many times would have been different.

He cried for what he had lost, he cried for Ginny, for everything she had happened to her because of him. He cried for the 'what ifs.' He cried because now that he was ready to have her, she was unreachable.