Disclaimer: I do not own 'Harry Potter' its characters or its settings. They remain the property of JKR. Anything you recognize belongs to her anything you don't is mine.

The Gryffindor common room was blissfully empty when Harry, Ron and Hermione arrived. Ron and Hermione stopped briefly to say good night, but Harry didn't even hesitate. He walked straight across the room and directly up the spiral stairs to the dormitory. As he'd hoped his four-poster bed stood ready and waiting for him. So too was a tray full of sandwiches which stood on the table beside his bed. Harry went over to it hungrily and had devoured three, pacing around the room before he even noticed what kind they were. Roast beef. One of his favorites. He smiled thinking of Kreacher leaving them there, but his brain was growing fuzzier by the moment. Indeed Harry hadn't slept since their last night at Shell Cottage and with all that had lay before them then, he hadn't slept well on that night either. He thought that now that the worst was behind him, he might now. Still there were two things he wanted to do that kept him from lying down. No scratch that, they were things he needed to do. First was to put the Elder Wand back where it came from. The second was to find Ginny.

Harry leaned back against his bed deep in thought about this. He'd seen Ginny several times that day during the aftermath of the battle, with her mother, surrounded by her family, clearly overcome by it all, but there was so much Harry felt he should explain. So much had happened, he had to see her, he had to talk to her if possible, he needed to know, was there any chance after all he'd put her through, after all he'd been through, would she take him back? So absorbed was Harry with these thoughts that he hardly heard it when Ron came into the room and saw him there, eyes unfocused, looking as though he'd lost something rather than having won a war.

"Harry," Ron called. "You okay mate?"

Harry shrugged.

"I thought you'd be asleep," Ron told him.

Harry shook his head, looking at Ron. "There's something I need to do. Actually there are two things."

"Well, can't they wait until morning?" Ron asked. "I'm beat."

"Yeah, I know Ron. Me too. One can but…" Harry's voice trailed away. "Have you seen Ginny?" he asked suddenly standing up straight.

"Yeah, I think she's down in the common room, why?"

"I'll be back in a bit," Harry told him and without a backwards look he made his way back down the stairs.

The common room looked deserted when Harry got there and his heart nearly dropped to his toes. The embers in the fireplace were growing low leaving the room in near darkness, but after a moment he found he could see just a bit. Carefully Harry scanned the room, and gradually made out the slight curve of a head protruding just above the back of one of his favorite squashy chairs next to the fire. Harry walked over to it and found Ginny there, curled in on herself looking as exhausted as he felt. Harry knelt down on the worn rug beside the chair looking closely at her. Her eyes were open, so she wasn't asleep, rather she was staring at what was left of the fire. Harry moved so that he was inside her field of vision.

"Ginny," he said softly.

He started to extend his hand towards her when he realized in the dying firelight just how filthy it was. Harry pulled his wand from his pocket, pointed it at his own hand and muttered tergeo allowing the magic to suction away some of the dirt and blood that coated his skin. He saw the corners of Ginny's mouth curve upwards ever so slightly at this.

"Ginny," he whispered again and this time he did extend his hand towards her, gently, ever so cautiously, unsure what her reaction might be. Ginny didn't move and Harry could see the streaks down her cheeks that clearly showed she'd been crying. Who hadn't on this particular day? And Harry wondered if they'd perhaps lost as much as they'd gained. 'No,' he corrected himself, they hadn't. That was Voldemort. With him gone they could rebuild, someday they might even be happy. Without that they would never have had that chance."

"Ginny, I'm so sorry. Are you alright?" he whispered.

Without warning Ginny lunged towards Harry with a yell. "POTTER! She exclaimed, springing with the agility of a large cat she threw herself at him, nearly knocking off his feet. Harry staggered backwards with the impact unsure if he was in for an embrace or the beating of his life. The back his legs hit the chair opposite the one Ginny had been sitting in and Harry collapsed back into it with Ginny on top of him, her hands balled up into fists as they hit his chest. Instinctively he wrapped arms around her to hold her, unsure still if he was protecting himself or not.

"HOW DARE YOU!" she fairly shouted in ear, nearly rendering him deaf as well as battered and bruised.

"Ginny, I am so sorry," he repeated.

"I thought you were dead!" she told him more quietly now with a muffled voice as she buried her face against the side of the chair.

Harry shifted sideways a bit until they were half sitting, half lying side by side in the softly padded chair.

"Ginny . . . I know hurt you, and if there was any way I could have pulled it off without that, if there was anyway to let you know without giving myself away…I couldn't stand it when I heard you cry out… you, Ron and Hermione," the words tumbled from Harry's mouth as he held her tightly against him, more of an embrace now than a defensive hold, knowing as he did that he never wanted to let her go. He buried his face in her hair. The familiar flowery scent was there, but so was the smell of blood and dirt and sick and burnt hair. This day hadn't been easy on any of them. "I almost lost it then."

"Harry…" her voice faltered, she was clearly in pain.

"Gin, I'm so sorry," he repeated. He didn't know what else do say. "I love you. I never meant to harm you. I wanted you to live."

At that Ginny pulled away from him, raising up on her arms to look at him. "You don't mean that. You can't," she insisted.

Harry just stared at her, desperate for her to know that his words were true. "I do, really…" he tried lamely.

But Ginny shook her head. "Let go of me Potter."

"No. Not yet. Not after all I've been through."

"I'm not some kind of prize you can win just by being the Chosen One!"

Harry's heart stung at that. Could she really mean that? Could everything he'd hoped for, everything he'd clung to in those last moments in the forest, was it possible he'd lost all that?

"No, of course not," he answered. He wanted to release her, but his arms wouldn't obey. He stared at her, searching her eyes, wanting to know the truth behind what she was saying. "Didn't my birthday…didn't that mean…anything?" he asked, his voice a whisper. It was taking everything he had to ask her this.

Ginny looked into his eyes, those startlingly green, emerald eyes and her own brown ones melted just a bit. "Of course it did," she whispered back. "But Harry…so much has happened…" she bent her head towards his and began to cry.

Harry started to pull her toward him in an embrace when he realized his shirt was even dirtier than his hand had been, covered as it was in blood from his many wounds and the ground in dirt from when he'd lain on the forest floor. Scourgify he muttered again and once again the phoenix feathered wand siphoned off the blood and dirt from his T- shirt. Ginny stared down at it, wondering at the gesture, then suddenly she gasped.

"Oh Harry, you're bleeding!" she whispered sitting up right again. "You're hurt."

Harry looked down. It was true, droplets of his blood were seeping back onto his shirt from the inside and he wondered dully which wound it was that was still bleeding. Did cursed wounds bleed? He wondered to himself. Did it bleed last time? If it did, for how long? but then he shook off the thought. There were more important things pressing on his mind.

"Talk to me, please," he pleaded.

"You need to go to the hospital wing," she told him, ignoring his question, trying to rise as though to pull him from the chair.

Harry shook his head, refusing to release his grip on her or to allow her to pull him from the chair. "No. Not tonight. Maybe in the morning Gin."

She looked at him sternly with that you-will-not-argue-with-me sort of look she'd inherited so well from her mother.

"I'm too tired. I can't really move anymore," he told her.

"Oh Harry…." Her voice softened.

"Besides, you're hurt too," he told her, reaching up to brush her hair away from a cut that ran along her cheek and across her upper lip. It too was still bleeding, just a little bit. There was another one along her chin. He ran his thumb along that one, wishing he could heal it. And there were more marks, possibly scars or from burns along one arm. He would have to ask her about that, but later. He reached out to touch it, but she pulled her arm away.

Clearly exhausted, she stopped trying to escape from his grip and rested against him again. Without thinking Harry brushed her forehead with his lips.

"I keep wishing," she murmured…"I kept hoping there was something I could do to help. But all I could give you was that stupid kiss." Her voice broke down and she was nearly crying again.

"That helped me more than I could ever begin to tell you," Harry said quietly, into her ear. "It kept me going, when I thought I would fail, when I went to face him…Gin… I couldn't have done it without you. I loved you so much… I just knew that if I did what I needed to do, you would have a chance to be safe, to live."

Now she did pound him. "And what kind of a life would that have been, without you?" she demanded.

But Harry didn't answer her. He simply pulled her in tight, his own eyes tearing up. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force back the moisture that threatened to betray him. When he opened them again, Ginny was looked up at him, studying his face, only inches away. As exhausted as he was, dry and cracked as he knew his lips to be, he bent towards her doing his best to avoid the wounds on Ginny's face, he kissed her. All the feeling from those months of running, of hiding, of thinking about her during the horocrux hunt and in the forest crashed in on him and he kissed her more passionately than he'd ever thought possible. When at last he pulled back, all she said was "Oh!" It as so soft a sound, he wasn't really even sure he'd heard it.

The next thing Harry knew Ginny had wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself close, and despite all his own open wounds, despite all the bruises and damage his body had suffered that day, Harry decided is was the best thing he'd ever felt.

"Just promise me one thing," she whispered in his ear.

"Anything Ginny, just name it."

"Never do anything like that again."

Harry let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

"Never," he assured her. "Once was quite enough."

Ginny giggled as she wiggled down closer to him. Harry rested his head on top of hers breathing slowly, ever so slightly beginning to relax as his eyes closed again. Ginny hadn't insisted he leave, she hadn't forced him away. Surely that meant he could stay …and Harry Potter drifted off finally into sleep.