*Wow. Good response! I know it's my story Traveller (intellectually I know this), but I can't help feeling a little obligated to all of you in terms of wanting to make it decent. But apparently you do find it decent, and I can rest easy :) … I liked the drunk scene too, but I'd just read a fanfic with one in it and I didn't want to run the risk of copying it. Don't freak out, Wacky Watermelon, criticism is good for the soul, hehe. And – oh my giddy aunt – LavenderBrown's reading my story! Hehe, my fanfic idol, all the way … thank you very much-a! Well, here goes … Oh, and PS, to those who've wondered and he/she who asked: 'no more 3x5s' is a John Mayer quote (my god, my hero, my perfect man – plus I really kinda wanna shag him hehe) and, if you seek proper explanation of the phrase, I suggest you go listen to the song ("3x5", Room for Squares) Go on. Go listen. Spread the John love hehe. And now, *let's move it along*

~

Harry woke up – he must have got some decent sleep after all – and felt Ginny touching his hand. He looked down. She was holding it, examining it.

"Hey, what's up?" Harry said.

She jumped. "Merlin, Harry! Nothing, I was just looking." She dropped his hand.

"See anything interesting?"

"Just a nice, normal hand. Feel better?"

He nodded. "What time is it?"

"About ten, maybe."

"I didn't think I was going to sleep."

"Why?"

Too busy looking at you, he thought, but just shrugged. She smiled at him. Her hair was mussed, and her lips were still red from kissing him, and he found himself shaking his head.

"What?" she asked, frowning a little.

"I can't believe you're here," he said wonderingly. "Still can't believe it."

"Well – here I am."

"I know."
They looked at each other. Usually Harry wouldn't have been comfortable with such extended eye contact – in this case, he found he could meet her eye for as long as he liked. She was still smiling, and he got that feeling in his chest again. Like his heart was going too fast for his body.

"You want to talk?" she asked softly.

"OK," he replied.

She shifted slightly closer, her smile fading into a set seriousness, and trailed her fingers across his chest briefly. He could feel himself coming up in goosebumps.

"What happened when you killed Voldemort?" she asked, after a long pause.

He physically started, and then so did she, but she didn't stop looking at him. He did – he looked at the ceiling.

"I don't want to talk about that," he said shortly.

"Why not?"

"Why do you think?" he snapped, angry despite himself.

"It's OK," she said, "you don't have to tell me. I just – I just wanted to talk about it."

She lay back on the pillow, clearly upset, but maintaining a brave face.

Harry went on staring at the ceiling, and then sighed. He was being a dickhead – again. At least he knew it right away, this time.

"Hey," he said, hands around her waist, pulling her towards him. She resisted at first, but then relaxed against him, her back to his front. He kissed her shoulder. "Sorry," he said. "Sorry, Gin. Just I don't want to think about it when you're here, and everything's going so great."

She turned to face him again, her expression grave. "You have to think about it sometime," she said plainly. "If you don't, it'll just sit inside and rot you away. And you don't have to protect me, Harry."
I'm not trying to protect you, he thought. I'm protecting myself.

"OK," he said finally. He cleared his throat. He didn't really know how to begin – he hadn't spoken to anybody about this. She didn't stare him down, and he was grateful. He had a feeling he wouldn't be able to talk if she was looking at him.

"Well, I think you know the beginning of it. You were there. We were going alright, in the fighting. But then, after Lupin and Tonks died and Dumbledore went down, things started to fall apart. I lost track of a lot of the Aurors and Ministry people. Ron and Hermione were still with me, but they ended up – well, they weren't in a position to help me out, exactly. And there were Death Eaters, just – everywhere. You know. Just everywhere. And Voldemort in the middle of it."

Harry stopped, trying to compose himself as memories swelled up and up, out of the lower darkness and into that awake part of his brain. He shivered, almost without knowing it. He didn't know if he wanted to keep going, but Ginny was holding onto his arm, quite firmly, listening as she looked at his chest, the bed, anywhere but his face. He thought she was afraid he might stop talking. He was afraid of that himself.

She needed him to go on. He did.

"And then, when there wasn't anyone to help, it was just me, and I was so scared because I knew it was either going to be my last minutes alive, or his. He didn't know that, though – I mean, he didn't believe it. He always thought it would be him who'd make it. I think because he never believed I'd kill him."

"But you did," Ginny pointed out in a quiet voice.

"I know," he said, feeling ill, speaking too sharply, "but that doesn't make me proud of it. He may have been Voldemort, but I still killed someone. I pointed my wand at him and turned him into nothing."

It was hard to bear, seeing this unfold in his head like a terrible film, all flash and colour and screaming music. He pushed on nevertheless – now that he'd begun, the memories were relentless. Ginny was still gripping his arm.

"He just evaporated. And there was green light, like I remember from when my parents died. And I felt sick – I remember that too, I threw up. All over the floor. Ron came over, I think – the Death Eaters were still there, and – I was sick, I remember. I had a headache. My scar felt like it was exploding. I had a headache." He was near babbling now, repeating things.

"Harry," Ginny said, almost to herself, and when he looked down at her, she was crying quietly.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I'll stop."

"No!" she insisted, finally meeting his eye. She put a hand on either side of his face. "Don't stop, OK? I want you to tell me. You should – have someone to tell."

With her voice, and the cool touch of her fingers, he suddenly had control of himself again. The words dried up in his mouth, and the images in his head receded.

"No," he said softly, wishing he could cover her ears, take back what he'd said so she wouldn't have to know. Now it was about protecting her, alright. "That's enough."

"Harry …"

"I'll tell you the rest another time."

She nodded mutely. He knew she was relieved, and that was OK. She didn't have to want to hear it all – it was enough that she said she wanted to, for him.

"I'm really glad you asked me," he said, and found he meant it.

She wiped her face self-consciously against the pillow-cover, and they lay in silence a while longer, recovering, coming back to their everyday selves.

"You want to get up?" she asked finally.

"If you are, I will."

Ginny smiled a bit. "I think I'll have a shower."

"I think I'll have one too. It's a bit small for both of us, I'm afraid."

"Harry," she said dryly, "I think you've been spending too much time with Fred and George."

Harry thought so too.

~

They changed (Ginny into the jeans she'd been wearing the previous night, and one of Harry's shirts – 'It smells like you!' she'd commented, and he hoped that was a good thing), ate Mrs Weasley's snacks for breakfast, and then walked down to the twins' store. Fred and George greeted them from across the room with yodelling and fan-fares, and George charmed a customer's hat to sing 'It Must Be Love'.

"Merlin," muttered Ginny, as every person in the shop stared at them. "You wouldn't happen to have your Invisibility Cloak around, would you?"

Harry shook his head, flattening his hair over his scar. "No, it's up in my room. Sorry."

"Come on," Ginny said, tugging on his arm as the twins approached. She pulled him out the door, Harry waving a brief and helpless goodbye.

"Wait!" Fred cried, holding up a paper bag. "We have heart-shaped sweets for you!"

But they were out on the street again before he could reach them.

It was strange how quickly Harry found a new joy in London. The anonymity he'd hated before now seemed like a blessing – he could hold Ginny's hand, touch her hair or her back, and not have to worry about what everyone else was thinking. He loved the closeness of her, the way she said certain words, the gentleness and the hardness in her. He loved the way she'd occasionally lean against him and hug him furiously, as though she'd just remembered she was allowed to do this.

He was in love with her, and he was in love with everything about her. That was it.

They discussed maybe going to visit Dumbledore again, but decided against it. Harry didn't honestly want to see the old Headmaster a second time. He just wanted him to get well. Ginny agreed. They wandered on, and window-shopped. Harry, who normally would have been bored stupid, enjoyed her company and comments so much that he didn't even realise it was getting on dark before she pointed it out.

"We should go home," she said.

He liked the way she said that – not 'the apartment', but 'home'.

They didn't go out for dinner, although Fred and George were keen. They invited Angelina and Katie over instead, and the four of them made a ridiculous amount of noise (and drank copious glasses of wine). Harry and Ginny sat next to one another at the table and were quiet. She had her hand on his knee, and it made his throat dry.

Harry didn't realise everyone was looking at them until he picked up on the sudden silence. The twins were grinning.

"Look at him," George said, shaking his head mournfully.

"Lost," agreed Fred.

"Gone forever."

"Absolutely bloody besotted."

Harry flushed. He wanted to say he didn't know what they were talking about, but he did.

"Oh, shut it you two," Ginny said.

Fred mimed zipping his mouth closed.

"I think it's great," enthused Katie. "You guys look so happy together."

By now, both Harry and Ginny were red. Thankfully, the twins had remembered some new prank-wands they were getting in stock, and decided to pull Katie and Angelina into the lounge room to show them.

"You want to go to bed?" Ginny asked when they were gone, rubbing his knee.

"Absolutely," Harry said immediately.

They stood, and practically ran to Harry's room. Ginny fell onto his bed while Harry performed a locking charm on the door, and then threw himself down beside her. The bed sagged a little under their combined weight, and she burst out laughing.

"Not such a skinny little boy, after all," she teased.

He grinned. "Not exactly, no. Merlin, your brothers are exhausting."

"I know. Try being related to them. Thank heavens we got away." She bit her lip in that way she had, and he touched her mouth with two fingers. "What?" she asked.

"I love it when you do that."

"Do what?"

He didn't say anything. He liked that she didn't know she was doing it.

"Harry," she began after a while, and then stopped.

"Yes?" he said, nudging her.

"Was today – alright?"
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Alright?"

"Mm."

"Was today alright?"

"Yes!" She laughed again, but only a little. She seemed anxious.

"Ginny," he said, unable to believe she couldn't know this, "today was great. And last night –" (because he sensed this was where her real apprehension lay) "was the best night of my life, bar none."

"Really?" she said, breaking into a slow smile.

He kissed her by way of reply. Ginny sighed into his mouth, and then settled against him. "I don't want today to end," she admitted.

"Why's that?"

"Things change so quickly. Three days ago I was sitting in my room all by myself. Now I'm here with you. I'm scared that – I just don't want things to change again," she finished hastily.

Harry nodded, looking at her. "Well, I'm not – you know, planning on going anywhere," he said awkwardly.

He felt her smile against his skin, rather than saw it.

"Good," she murmured.