Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. I own some made up spells and OC's.
Chapter 8 A Conversation
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny Weasley was sitting on her bed in the Burrow, trying not to think about how furious Harry looked, how hurt he looked, how- Damnit. I keep thinking about it.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She wanted desperately for Harry to reply, and she had hopes he would. She knew him better that most people, perhaps even more than Ron and Hermione. Of course, thinking that brought back memories of the trial, which brought back how badly she had hurt Harry, which brought her back to her reply.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Yippe! What a nice circle of painful thoughts I have. She thought sarcastically.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was hard for Ginny, more than anyone. She had no one, not really. Everything always reminded her of Harry, and it never stopped hurting her. She could look at her favorite tree and remember how Harry and her snuggled beneath it, or how much Harry tasted like chocolate, or- This must be my torture. To constantly remember Harry and be unable to have him.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was far worse than the years she spent pining after him, before she gave up, before Harry noticed her. Because now she had had him, and then she lost him. Whoever said that it was better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all can bugger off.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny's thoughts were interrupted by a brown post owl flying to her window. Her heart leapt at the sight. Was it Harry? Could he possibly accept her invitation?
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She took the small note shakily, and read the single word in Harry's unmistakable scrawl, that brought both joy and terror to her heart.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Fine.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter sat, hooded and cloaked, in the Leaky Cauldron, his emerald eyes searching for the telltale fiery red hair of the youngest Weasley. He was sitting in a private corner, given to him quickly by Tom, the innkeeper. One look into his emerald eyes was enough to grant him a private parlor, complete with the small lunch waiting for him. Finally, the clock struck noon, and the door opened.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry couldn't hold back a small gasp as he looked at her. She was breathtaking, as always. She was the one thing in his life that still affected him in the same way as it did prior Azkaban. Her red hair was free and long, covering her ears and parts of her face, her slender body encased in a pretty sundress, her big brown eyes looking for him. Their eyes met, and the electricity of it sent shivers down both their backs. She made her way over to him, smiling faintly. It took a huge effort for him not to smile back.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She opened her mouth to greet him, but he silenced her with a pleading look. "Not here." He said neutrally. "Tom has a private parlor upstairs with a lunch."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny nodded, taking in the fact that he got her lunch, when she invited him. They proceeded up the stairs in silence, with Ginny trying to study Harry, to see how he was. She had made a habit of this throughout her early Hogwarts years, and could read him better than even Hermione. Of course, it didn't help her during the trial. Somehow, everything always led back to that trial.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He was closed, guarded, even more so than the summer before sixth year, before 'it' happened. But Ginny could feel his soul, feel its pain, and feel its loneliness.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Finally, they entered the private parlor, and as Harry closed the door, Ginny turned towards him. "Harry." She whispered, "It's so good to see you. I missed you."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at her, but said nothing, moving to sit in the wooden chair. She wasn't lying. Harry knew who was lying to him all the time, considering how advanced he was in Legilimency. He motioned her to sit.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She sat, and picked up a biscuit, and ate it quickly. Harry watched her, studying her, both with his eyes and his Legilimency. Turmoil, grief, and, love, were etched inside of her, not bothering to hide. He loved her once, and maybe he did still, he acknowledged that fact at least. But he would not show it. He would only be hurt again. And if he was hurt again, then people would die. Painfully.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I suppose it's good to see you too." Harry said gruffly, deciding to tell the truth, before turning away to avoid looking at her eyes. He picked up a cup of steaming tea, and drank it slowly.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny smiled, happy that he at least acknowledged the greeting, and reciprocated. Maybe there was hope for the both of them yet.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry put down the drained cup of tea. "So how is everyone?" He asked, curious to know how his innocence affected everyone, no matter how much he severely disliked them, hate being far too strong a word. He didn't hate them, he couldn't really do that, not without risking the dark part of him overwhelming him.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Good. Ron and Hermione are married. It was a good wedding." Ginny said, smiling at the memories.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry raised an eyebrow. "Ron and Hermione got married huh? They must bicker either more or less then."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "The bickering is far worse now. Even during the wedding, they were bickering. But when they said their vows…" Ginny said the last part in a half-whisper, reverently, wishing feverently that Harry and her were married.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I can imagine." Harry said, both to them bickering at their own wedding and the look they gave each other when they said their vows. He had seen it so many times in so many people. He almost wished he could have been there, to share that moment with them. Of course, he also wished Azkaban had never happened, but you can't change the past. Well, you could, Harry thought, But that would require a lot of magic and illegal and dangerous time travel, risking paradoxes.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry would never change the past, not just because he couldn't, but because it was probably better this way. Voldemort was gone, and nearly everyone he knew was still alive. He remembered Hagrid, Percy, Sirius, Cedric, Tonks, and the other's who had died in the fight against Voldemort, and paid his respects again, as he did nearly every day.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny looked at Harry, noticing he was lost in thought. She had seen that look so many times on his face, and she had been the one to bring him out of it. Harry told her that that took guts for her to stand up to him. She didn't know if she could risk something like that anymore, not when they didn't even have a friendship at this stage. "Harry?" She finally asked, daring to break the silence.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What? Oh, sorry. Just lost in thought." Harry said.ྭྭ
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "About what?" She asked, surprised by her daring.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "About the war, Azkaban, and those who died. What I think about most of the time." Harry joked, but it was a deadly serious tone.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "That's not funny." Ginny said just a seriously.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I know." He said, looking away.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-" Ginny began, but Harry cut her off.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Don't we have something to discuss?" He said abruptly, coldly.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ All the familiarity and feelings Ginny sparked in him was gone now, replaced by an icy mask. Harry had forgotten about what had happened to him, the dark times, the insanity that plagued him for a year, because of a slip of a girl. But Ginny is not a slip of a girl, A voice inside of him commented. It was true. She was a strong woman, and a pretty one too. But it was back to business now. The past was over, and he needed some closure about it.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Right." Ginny said coolly, but inside she was hurting. The familiarity and calm air they had around each other was gone. For those brief moments, she felt as though she was still a fifth year, still Harry Potter's girlfriend, instead of the girl who broke his heart.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry. I'm sorry. That's the first thing I should say, above anything else." Ginny began, keeping up the calm, cool façade. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you, like I promised I would be."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry remembered that night all to well. A bittersweet memory that brought him and Ginny closer.
--Flashaback--
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry stood in a circle of trees outside the Burrow. During dinner, Ron had brought up mention Harry's Firebolt, which prompted him to remember Sirius. He had left early, and ran from the Burrow, as if he could run from all the pain and guilt that threatened to overwhelm him. He finally made it to a small clearing outside of the Burrow, and he found himself alone. A feeling that killed and comforted him. He craved to be alone part of the time, yet when he was alone, he craved comfort. The comfort that a mother provided.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's head whipped around, his wand pointed at the intruder, who turned out to be the youngest Weasley. "Ginny! Don't scare me like that!" He said, exasperated. He remembered the tears threatening to pour from his face and turned away quickly. For some reason, he didn't want her to see him break down like this.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, Ron wasn't thinking-" Ginny began, but Harry wasn't in the mood to talk.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah. He wasn't. That's great. Now leave." Harry said rudely.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ At this, Ginny's eyes flashed dangerously and Harry knew he had made a mistake. At the same time though, he couldn't help but notice how pretty she looked like that. Maybe that's why dad made mum mad. Harry thought, before all thoughts of his parents were banished by Ginny stalking close to him, reminding Harry of how he saw his mother in the Pensieve, walking towards his dad.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Now you listen here Harry James Potter. You will not take that tone with me." Ginny said evenly, but it was not a request, but a demand.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry opened his mouth to retort, surprise by her audacity, but Ginny cut him off again.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I don't care how badly you feel, but it doesn't help if you make everyone else sad. Mum and Ron were just trying to help. Now you march back in there and apologize!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "YOU'RE RIGHT! NO ONE BLOODY CARE'S HOW I FEEL! I'M JUST HARRY BLEEDIN POTTER! BOY-WHO-LIVED!" Harry yelled back, furious. "It's always, oh, Harry can deal with it. He's a strong boy! He's already lost his parents and godfather, but he should feel happy all the frickin' time!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry paused for a moment, regaining his breath before loosing his tirade again. "I JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE FOR A WHILE, ALRIGHT! I CAN'T EVEN GET THAT! Jesus Ginny, I know they're trying to help but I don't want them too! I don't even want to be here! You're all in danger because of me! And if you guys died…" Harry whispered the last part softly, almost to himself. "I wouldn't know how to go on."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny's anger faded at how lost and alone Harry looked at that moment. She realized she was seeing the true Harry Potter. Not the brave hero, the Boy-Who-Lived, but a lost little boy who was alone. "Harry…" She said, bringing his attention back to her, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. But it's just that we're all trying to help you Harry, but you won't let us in!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well maybe I don't want anyone to get close to me! Everyone who cares about me dies and leaves me alone!" As Harry finished his retort, he finally broke down and fell to his knees, sobbing violently. "They always leave me alone."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It brought Harry back to his childhood, and how alone he felt. He never had any friends, his aunt and uncle never cared about him or comforted him, and his cousin bullied him. Harry was always alone, even in a large crowd, he was isolated. Going to Hogwarts only intensified it, now that he knew that he was a marked man, destined to kill or be killed.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly Harry was aware of two arms encircling him and pulling him into a fierce hug, and the sweet scent of apple blossoms surrounding him, calming him. "It's alright Harry," Ginny whispered soothingly, "It's alright. I'm here. I will never leave you alone. You have all of us now. We won't leave you alone. I'll never leave you alone. I promise."
--End Flashback--
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After that moment, Harry and Ginny were almost inseparable. In a few days they were going out, and Harry couldn't have been happier. He felt the weight of the world a little less overwhelming, and he was finally starting to heal. Then Azkaban happened.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah, I remember." Harry said coldly. "I remember it perfectly. I think you were the one who forgot."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I did forget. I'm so sorry Harry. I know I'll never be able to make it up to you." Ginny said quietly, her head down, tears threatening to fall from her eyes.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You're right. But I didn't come here for excuses or so that you could make it up to me, which you could never do for me. I came here for some closure, to hear why you betrayed me." Harry said, his mask threatening to fall with the tears in Ginny's eyes.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You're right, of course." Ginny said briskly, trying to match Harry's businesslike manner, and managing it just barely.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So. Let's here it." Harry said quietly. He didn't know if he was ready for this. But like everything in life, he would meet it head on, without fear.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, I suppose the biggest reason I didn't believe you was Percy." Ginny said quietly.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry remembered the day Percy returned to the Weasley family, how haggard and pitiful he looked, how much he longed for his family. The Weasleys reunited. Before Percy was murdered. Still, the family had been close to Percy, so maybe they were so blinded by their grief about their newly returned prodigal son.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see. I should have seen this earlier." Harry said in the same tone, finally comprehending their reasoning. "You are close to all of your brothers, right?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah. But me and Percy…" Ginny said, her voice almost breaking. She missed her older brother. "Percy always defended me from the twins and Ron after Bill and Charlie left. Even though I learned to do it myself, me and him were close."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I suppose I understand." Harry said evenly. "People do irrational things when one is blinded by grief."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny knew what he was talking about. The use of the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange after she had killed Sirius. He had told her first, and had nearly broken down because of it.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "That's no excuse though." Ginny said, sorrow breaking her calm façade.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You're right. But I believe we already discussed that, Ginny." Harry said calmly, fighting the raging storm of emotions inside of him.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Right." Ginny said, resisting the urge to rub her eyes, settling on blinking. "I just wanted you to know that that was the biggest reason. Make no mistake, I cared a lot about Hagrid too. He was a good man, and one of the few people who listened and talked with me for a long time." She said with a large amount of conviction in her eyes.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry blinked, remembering the first time he met Hagrid, how he rescued him from the Dursleys, stood up for him, and stood by him steadfastly. "He was my first friend." Harry said quietly, so quietly Ginny was unnerved by it. "I never met anyone as nice as him before that day. He was my first friend, and the first person to even give me a birthday present. I'll never forget him. Good man. No. Great man."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny smiled. Harry always had a penchant for speeches sometimes. The D.A. loved it. "That he was." Ginny said quietly. She raised her tea in a silent salute, and Harry followed suit.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The silence descended upon them again, no longer the comfortable, friendly silence that once existed between them, but a cold, uncomfortable silence that felt almost smothering.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What about Hermione?" Harry said this so quietly that Ginny barely caught it. "Why didn't she believe me?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "She confided in me that she had doubts, but Ron and Dumbledore convinced her. She was scared of losing Ron, so she believed you did it." Ginny said, hating Hermione, her best friend, for doing that to Harry, even though she could do no better.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see. Friends to the end, huh." Harry said quietly, reliving all the memories the Trio, as they were known, had had throughout their first five Hogwart's years.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He remembered the oaths given to him by Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, and Ginny one night, after another round of attacks on the Wizarding World. He had been extremely depressed, and wanted to cut off ties with them, but none of them would let him. 'We'll follow you to hell and back Harry.' Ron had said forcefully, and the other's nodded along with him feverently, conviction etched on each of their features, even the normally dreamy Luna.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Do you remember another promise you, Ron, and the others made to me?" Harry said coolly. "What was it? We'll follow you to hell and back? Well, I went to hell, but I don't think I was followed." His voice dripped with sarcasm as he said the last part.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny remembered that day all too well as she winced at his tone. "No, we didn't." She affirmed softly.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "How is Lovegood and Longbottom, anyway?" Harry said casually. He was actually curious about the newer additions to the former group.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny looked up, startled at the question. "They're married now, to each other. Luna's the editor of the Quibbler, and Neville is the head Auror."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Neville? Head Auror?" Harry chuckled. He knew Neville was a tough fighter and a brave man, but how did he pass Potions! "How did he get through Potions?" He joked.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I think he learned the connection between Potions and Herbology." Ginny said, smiling again. He was back to his old self for another moment, and she savored every part of it.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "They tied to knot huh…" Harry said, smiling at the thought of the two of them married. Such an odd couple. But every couple was different, he supposed.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah. Another great, if strange wedding." Ginny said, wishing that she and Harry, the last of their little group, had gotten married.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'll bet." Harry said, a half-smile playing on his lips. He wondered exactly whatLuna had done at her wedding. Luna wasn't crazy, just different, as her friends knew. She loved to be her own person, and stand out in the crowd.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And then suddenly Harry shook himself from his thoughts, and was business again. "Is that it?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny was slightly thrown by the change in topic, but being best friends with Luna Lovegood had given her quite a knack for the random changes. "I suppose so…" Ginny said, holding back the regret in her voice.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "This has been… nice." Harry admitted. Damn that girl.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Maybe we can talk again some time?" Ginny asked hopefully.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Maybe." Harry said guardedly. "And Ginny?" He added.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yes Harry?" She asked cautiously, ignoring the curious euphoria she was getting from the breakthroughs with Harry today.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Don't tellanyone about this." Harry said calmly, but the unsaid threat was there. Tell anyone, and you'll never hear from me again.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I won't Harry, but you know Hermione. She'll figure it out." Ginny pleaded, knowing that Harry would disappear so fast she would never be able to explain if that happened.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You have a point. Fine. Tell her about it if, and only if, she knows." Harry said, with a note of finality.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Okay Harry." She said quietly, looking down.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As he neared the door, he turned back to look at her. She looked up at that moment, and could see embarrassment, and uncertainty in his emerald eyes. "Ginny?" Harry asked.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yes Harry?" She repeated, curious to know what made him so uncertain.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Thanks."