Well, I sincerely hope you enjoy this story. It was born out of a frustration with Harry/Ginny pieces and a plot bunny that wormed its way into a dismal writer's block. I simply had to go with it.
Enjoy:
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry, Ginny, Hogwarts, Voldemort or any people/places/things you recognize from the wonderful JK Rowling's Harry Potter series.
Cricketlover: Wow. I totally missed that. It's a good point, though – I guess I meant that Hermione was working up until she hit nine months. She wanted to work through her pregnancy as much as possible.
Peas and Carrots: You're right. I think I explain the whole Auror-too-soon thing in this chapter. The Order was so desperate for Aurors that they grabbed them up with a month or two or basic training.
Harry never saw the Weaslys anymore. Well, he'd seen Ginny just earlier today, in the medical tent and he saw Hermione and Ron often enough, but he'd given up on Mr. and Mrs. Weasly as parents. He didn't need parents anymore. For crying out loud, he was eighteen years old and one of the best Aurors on the field. He was strong and handsome and rich and he should've been spending his time with girls, but he couldn't do that now. Nobody did that now. Everybody young enough – parents' consent or not – was on the field, dying to protect…dying to protect something, anyway. Harry wasn't quite certain what Voldemort was trying to take away.
Anyway, when Harry was off the field, all he could think about was Ginny. That was why he'd given the Weaslys. Whenever he was with them, Ginny was too, and it was too hard to see Ginny without remembering that day back in seventh year….
Life had been very, very good. Harry had finally managed to capture Ginny's attentions, and they were a couple. Ron was happy, too, having hinted at the situation for years, until he saw them making out in the hallway during one of his patrols as prefect and went off on a terrible rant. Harry, to appease him, had listed any number of reasons for dating Ginny – one had been pity. But it wasn't true, and Ginny wasn't meant to overhear it. That was where the problem lay.
Harry sighed. He could be at the Weaslys now. He could be at his flat right now, if Dumbledore hadn't allowed him to return to the field. But then, lying on that cot, watching Ginny bend over another patient, Harry realized he couldn't take a week of rest. He needed to be out there, fighting.
"Coming, mate?" Donathan Lewis was three years older than Harry, but this was his first year of real on the job work, too.
"Yeah." Harry jumped off of his bed.
"Saw you disappear into that med tent," Donathan said conversationally as they made their way to the mess hall. "You injured or just making time with that pretty nurse?"
"Injured," Harry said, ignoring the comment about the nurse. "Nothing serious though. I pleaded my case with Dumbledore and he let me go."
"I'd give anything to get off this crap," Donathan said, "but I owe it to my parents. Especially my Mum. She was so proud when I told her I'd become an Auror."
"There I'm lucky," Harry said with a faint smile. "I always wanted to be an Auror."
"But we're not really Aurors, are we?" Donathan asked. "We're an army armed with wands and robes and silly incantations. Aurors are special class, hard to get into, big time jobs and we just signed up and they took us on."
"Yeah." Harry opened the door to the mess hall. The food was decent here, conjured up by three older witches who had worked in the Ministry for ages, had retired and were asked to take this honored position. They had fun, too, and the food was reminiscent of the better feasts during Harry's Hogwarts days.
He took a place beside Fiona, the shy Scottish witch and Bran, the angry Welsh wizard. The three of them made up the backbone of the Auror Squad, the highly dangerous and terribly important secret missions squad, the only eight Aurors in the country that sought Death Eaters out.
"This is crap," Bran said. "Not the food – I mean, have you heard? They're thinking of cutting the Squad. It's too much effort and they need manpower here."
"Oh." Fiona stared down at her food. Harry grinned to himself. He liked them both very much. He liked that they were so perfectly themselves all the time. Fiona was never loud and Bran was never happy.
"Then we'll be suck here all the time?" Harry asked.
"Yeah." Bran jammed his fork into a piece of steak. "Stuck on this field until the day we die."
"Better than a desk job," Clarence Patrick said, sitting down beside them. Clarence was a round, older wizard who reminded Harry of Neville Longbottom. He wasn't a good wizard, but the Order was so desperate for Aurors that they had to sign him up.
"That's true," Fiona said.
"Like crap it is," Bran said fiercely. "You all are lucky; I've got a girl back home and it's this damn war's fault I'm not with her now. You got no connections. Especially you, Harry. Damn lucky orphan."
Thoughts of Ginny flew into Harry's mind. Maybe there would've been a chance – however slight – of the two of them together, if there hadn't been a war.
"Don't talk like that," Clarence was saying. "If you were an orphan, young man, you wouldn't feel that way."
"It's okay," Harry said quietly. But Clarence was right. There were few things Harry wouldn't give for his parents alive. He could imagine them beside him, guiding him, helping him.
"You got hurt today?" Clarence asked.
"Just a few scratches. Most of those Death Eaters can't control their curses. This one happened to land on me."
"It's a pity," Clarence agreed. "I wish I was fighting real monsters – and there are the Dementors, of course – but those Death Eaters are a mindless herd."
"Yeah." Harry sighed.
Harry hated trying to fall asleep. His thoughts were free then, and they liked to settle on Ginny – on Ginny's hair and eyes and smile and her figure and the clothes she wore when she was in muggle London. Not that she didn't look good in robes – Ginny could make any outfit worthy of a princess.
Harry rolled over and fumbled for the book on his dresser. It was a photo album, from pictures he'd taken in his last year at Hogwarts, when Hermione and Ron had pitched in to give him a wizard camera for Christmas.
Quickly, because he knew the book so well, Harry found the section he was looking for. Sighing heavily, he turned the pages – pictures of him and Ginny smiling out from every page. Ron had taken most of these for them. Harry ran a finger over the pictures.
God, but he'd do anything to get that time back.