Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter.

Chapter 11 Broken and Fixed

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ In the three months after the election of Minister Weasley, Harry Potter had not been seen since that fateful day at the Ministry. Harry had done quite a bit of thinking in the three months he had stayed in the Marauder's castle.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ To his joy a few days after the events at the Ministry, he had happened to fall upon a hidden courtyard, complete with a Quidditch Pitch. Quite literally, he fell upon it as he fell from a ledge on the rooftop while doing some brooding, his most frequent pastime. He had discovered that it was hidden from sight, to avoid being caught by anyone, and the only reason he found it was because he fell into the illusion. It had taken some time before he found the real entrance, which was in a back corner of the castle, a good place to sneak out of. Harry amused himself by thinking about his father and the Marauders (he cut Wormtail out of the picture), even Remus, wandering and sneaking around a castle. It fit all the descriptions of the Marauders, and of course, Harry himself had done the very act several times. Needless to say, Harry had tried out nearly every broom in his collection. That alone was quite refreshing and time consuming for Harry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Of course, Harry had also spent time exploring the rest of the castle, even after he had discovered his private Quidditch Pitch. The one room, of course, he had avoided like the plague (or his old friends) was his mother's study. He just couldn't face it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And this was the problem that he was now brooding over. He had gone near it once or twice, but each time, he froze, and left without a word, his entire body shaking slightly. He would always look pale, on the verge of a breakdown, and he always brooded over it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But Harry brooded a lot. Not that he would admit that to himself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He wanted to get there, to beat that goddamn Boggart down and conquer it. He wanted to read about his mother's life, to learn about his heritage, his past. In short, to get one of the many things Life denied him. To do that, he needed to get some help.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He wanted to know exactly what was wrong with him. Fear, hell, any feelings were really foreign to him. Yeah, well feelings would be tough to know with relatives that hate you, insane dark lords after your head, and most of the world deciding whether or not you're crazy or a hero.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had come to a solution that had crept into his mind while brooding, but when he first realized it, he scared Dobby with extremely vehement swearing combined with a crazed look in his eyes. And when you scare someone who worships the loo you went on, that's pretty damn bad.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Well, anyone would react that way with my solution! Harry thought angrily to himself, more to justify his behavior than anything else.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry hated his solution when he had come up with it about a week ago, but in the end, he knew what he had to do, no matter how much he hated it. He needed help.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "And no, not just anyone's help, buther help" Harry muttered angrily.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ You know it's our only choice. We totally suck at understanding ourself. Give us a Dark Lord, we'll beat him. A snitch on a sugar high, we'll get it. Put us under a Cruciatus, we'll endure. Try to make us do some touchy-feely crap, and we fall to pieces.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry sighed, and called Hedwig over. His snowy white owl landed nearby him, looking at him quizzically. "Here girl, take this." Harry sighed, grabbing the note he had written almost three days ago, when his resolve to not do this exact thing had been weak.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Let's just hope I'm doing the right thing." Harry muttered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny Weasley sat at her room at the Burrow, still feeling a strange sensation of everything going too far out, too fast. In a little over six months, her whole life had turned topsy-turvy. First, she found out that the love of her life and ex-boyfriend whom she had been feeling hurt and betrayed to for over three years turns out to be innocent of the crimes she thought he committed. Next, the whole Voldemort being dead thing and the ousting of Minister Fudge in the same week. After that, and one of the most insane moments of her life, the election of HER father as Minister of Magic. It wasn't that she didn't have faith in her father, she just never expected him to be where he was now.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ All thanks to Harry Potter, who still affected everything at the Burrow and Ginny, no matter what. She really wanted to see him, but respected the fact that, no matter how much she hated it, she had no right to demand to see him. Not anymore.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, echoing a meeting over three months ago, an owl pecked her window. But this owl was not a regular brown post owl, but a very familiar snowy owl.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hedwig!" Ginny almost yelled, but covered her mouth, knowing that Harry would hate to have any private contact shown to anyone else. She couldn't risk it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She opened the window slowly, as if Hedwig was a mirage that would disappear if she spooked her. "What are you doing here girl?" Ginny asked quietly, reaching out to stroke the snowy owl's form.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hedwig allowed herself a moment of indulgence before she thrust her leg out, the note Harry had written for her gleaming in the sunlight.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny looked at it for a moment, unable to comprehend why Harry was sending her a note.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ When she read it, however, she realized what he wanted.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She quickly scribbled a reply, and hastily handed it to Hedwig, still half-afraid she would disappear. As she watched the snowy owl go, she felt a small amount of warmth in her heart, and it had nothing to do with the heat.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter paced in the receiving room of the Marauder's Castle, both eager and half-afraid. "Calm down Harry, its just Ginny." Harry muttered, but he knew he was fooling himself, just like the last time he said that. Which of course, led to his eventual infatuation and soon love for her.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was really hoping that wouldn't happen again.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As he paced, he wondered if he was doing the right thing. And of course, he figured he was. If not, then what was the worst thing that could possibly happen?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry answered that question with about a dozen scenarios before he groaned aloud and almost went for the Firewhiskey cabinet. Only the remembrance that he had a visitor kept him from getting pissed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ For some reason, he didn't really want anyone, especially Ginny to see him when he was a raving drunk.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Probably for the best, though, Harry thought to himself. A combination of Ginny Weasley, Firewhiskey, his temper, and his power could lead to several very unfortunate incidents.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Several of which could land him back in Azakaban, this time, without a chance of being pardoned for being framed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry really didn't want to be a criminal in the media's eyes again. It might lead to him going all mass murdering sociopathic Dark Lord on them. He figured he'd be a sociopath because he'd know what he was doing was wrong, he just wouldn't give a damn.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was shaken from visions of several bloody deaths that involved several household appliances and inverting a few reporters' spinal columns into several positions that a human body, nor anything that had a spinal cord could do, when a knock was heard.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry moved slowly, deliberately, and almost hesitantly towards the door. He opened it, and, before he could help himself, a small smile passed on his face that went unnoticed by himself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But the redheaded girl in front of him noticed, and smiled back.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hello Harry," Ginny Weasley said happily.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ When Ginny was given the invitation to come to Harry's flat to talk, she thought he would have a modest muggle flat, or perhaps an apartment with a sky-view. She never expected a castle half the size of Hogwarts!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, where did you get this?" Ginny asked as Harry led her to a sitting room.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ For a second, Harry wanted to lie, but he decided that, if he was going to get anywhere today, he needed to be honest about some things at least. "My parents." Harry stated.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see…" Ginny said, smiling at him. "Bit big, isn't it?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Then Harry did something he hadn't done for a while. He actually chuckled. Ginny looked shocked for a moment, and Harry said after he stopped chuckling, "Yeah. It is pretty damn big."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Ginny asked, knowing that Harry liked things to be straight to the point.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well… you see…" Harry started, and began his tale. He told Ginny how he stumbled upon his mothers study and journal, how he found the Boggart, and what it turned it to. Ginny's eyes watered as Harry described with minimum feeling how everyone he has ever known and loved called him a traitor and worthless. When the tale was over, Ginny had silent tears pouring down her cheeks.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "That must have been terrible for you Harry. I'm sorry." Ginny whispered, and through her tears, she wanted to simply throw her arms around this hurting man that she loved so very much and hold him. But she didn't. She couldn't, not yet.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah, well… living with the Dursleys gave me a bit more resistance to being told I was worthless," Harry said, trying to lighten the mood, before adding quietly, "It was the other stuff I couldn't take."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny decided to take a chance and put her hand on Harry's knee, trying to bring him comfort with her mere touch. Unbeknownst to her, it was doing just that. "I want to get over this, Ginny. I want to move past this. I want to learn about my parents, and I'm going to need your help." Harry stated, looking at Ginny now.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry… why me? After everything I've done-" Ginny started, her voice laced with sadness and self-loathing, but Harry cut her off.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Because you know as well as I do that I'm bloody terrible at this touchy-feely stuff." Harry said, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his lips and his eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "True, you are." Ginny said, smiling back.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh, I'm hurt." Harry playfully mocked, putting a hand to his chest. "So," He said, getting serious, "Will you help?'

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Of course I will Harry." Ginny said, looking deep into his emerald green eyes with her chocolate brown ones. "I'll always be willing to help you out. It's the least I can do."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Okay. So…" Harry started, running his hand through his hair, hoping to mask his confusion about what to do next.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Just speak about how you felt Harry." Ginny said, thinking to herself, I sound like one of those muggle pyschowhatsis that Hermione told us about.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's eyes closed, and he began reliving those terrible moments. They surfaced, never having stopped haunting his thoughts fully. After a moment, he was able to figure out a few things he felt.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I was… afraid. Afraid of those words. I didn't want to be betrayed again!" Harry said, his voice raising as his eyes began watering. "I didn't want to have to deal with all of that again." Harry whispered, holding his head in his hands. He felt a tiny part of the dam that held every emotion in check being cracked. He was beginning to break down.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny grabbed his hands and pulled him up to look into her eyes. "Harry, that will never happen anymore. None of us will ever leave you again. We're so sorry." Ginny whispered, and her self-control broke as she hugged Harry with all her might, pouring all her concern and love for him into it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry allowed himself to be held, more out of the demand for comfort after being denied human touch and real contact for so long. The walls Azakaban created had begun to wear down without being needed in solitude that lacked Dementors. But, like always, Harry resisted the urge to break and tried to hold strong.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Just let it out Harry." Ginny whispered, realizing that this was the talk that the two of them really needed. No one else around, just the two of them reconciling. The previous talk between them had been merely a prelude to this real heart-to-heart.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ With that, Harry allowed a small tear to pass through his eyes, allowing his barriers to crumble in the arms of his beloved. Ginny sighed, and smiled slightly. Most people would consider that one tear him holding back, but Ginny knew how Harry was. How strong he was. How that small tear was more weakness than most people would ever get from him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I don't want to be alone…" Harry kept chanting, the mantra he used for a few months in Azakaban. Before the whole insanity then the Inheritance gig.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You'll never be alone Harry. Even when you stayed alone in this castle, you are always in our hearts. We are so sorry…" Ginny whispered, rocking him slowly. "We will never abandon you again. I won't abandon you again. I promise."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Promise." Harry whispered, the sound of his voice so pleading that Ginny felt tears grown behind her eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I promise. I'll never leave you Harry." She whispered, "I love you." The words slipped out before she could stop them, and she felt Harry freeze right alongside her. He pulled away, and Ginny felt as if her heart was being pulled with him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'm sorry Harry, I shouldn't have-" Ginny started, but Harry cut her off.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I understand. Got caught up in the past, right." Harry started, forcing a smile.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Right." Ginny said, but somehow, she knew both she and Harry were lying to each other and themselves.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After the uncomfortable silence that followed, Harry summoned Dobby to bring them some food. As they dug into the scones and Harry sipped his tea, Ginny remarked, "Hermione would be pissed that you have a house-elf, Harry."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "True," Harry said, reminiscing about S.P.E.W. and the looks he and Ron shared when Hermione got too difficult with her crusade, "But I pay Dobby."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "How'd you get Dobby anyway?" Ginny asked, curious as to how he got the eccentric house-elf from Hogwarts.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Dumbledore gave him to me," Harry said, his face tightening as he mentioned the Headmaster.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see." Ginny said, and decided that this was probably her best chance to finish clearing the air and helping Harry on the road to healing, "You know Harry, Dumbledore is really broken up. He's less cheerful nowadays. He looks so old."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry felt a tiny worm of guilt burrowing into his mind, but he ignored it. "Is he now? Well, he is pretty ancient." He said blandly, trying to get away from the topic of the venerable wizard. Harry looked away to avoid the chance that Ginny would catch the guilt that might show in his eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry," Ginny said, deciding that discretion was not the better part of valor, "I know things between you and Dumbledore were strained, even before Azakaban," She nearly choked on the last word, "But he's really sorry Harry. He truly is Harry, and it's killing him that you won't speak to him. Please Harry, he doesn't have much longer."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's head snapped around so fast Ginny was sure he used magic. "He's dying?" Harry asked incredulously, his concern showing. Harry told himself he was merely concerned what the loss of Dumbledore and the hermit life Harry had taken would do to the Wizarding World. Of course, it's quite easy to lie to yourself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "No Harry." Ginny said, trying not to smile at his concern. "He's just a very, very old man whose only real wish is to make peace with the boy he considered a grandson."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah, I'm sure most grandfathers place their grandkids with relatives that hate them, and then later send them off to what amounts to Hell on Earth." Harry said bitterly, but he felt a tiny spark of warmth that Dumbledore still thought of him as a grandson.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, Dumbledore wanted you to live. You know how he is, Harry." Ginny said, her voice a cross between placating and pleading, "He either thinks too much of people or-"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Or he thinks they're pure evil. Like he knows Tom Riddle was. Like he thought I was." Harry said bitterly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny decided that she had to risk whatever relationship she and Harry were rebuilding by bringing him out of his funk, just like she had done quite a few times in the past. "Harry, if you were in Dumbledore's shoes, and you already let Tom loose on the world, and then apparently you have a new, more powerful him that you could contain," She explained, looking into his eyes, "What would you do?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'd-I'd…" Harry whispered, turning around and trying to avoid looking at Ginny, but she grabbed his shoulders and looked into his eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What would you do?" Ginny asked, her large brown eyes boring into Harry's emerald eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'd put the new Tom away." Harry whispered as his voice broke, and he looked down. "I'd want to protect the rest of the world…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny pulled Harry up to look at her again, and said calmly, "You and Dumbledore are so much alike Harry. I'll bet you want to make peace with him to."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "How do you know?" Harry challenged.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Because… I-" Ginny began, trying to say those three words again, but Harry got the meaning, not wanting to hear those words just yet.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I know Gin. I know." Harry said, unconsciously going back to the nickname he liked to use for her. "I just… I'm afraid of… of…" Harry trailed off, unable to move the words from his mind to his mouth. He was never good with words.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Of being betrayed again?" Ginny said, getting Harry's meaning perfectly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah." Harry admitted softly. "It'll take some time Ginny," Harry said louder, "But maybe, if you, Dumbledore, and everyone else can wait, maybe I can trust all of you."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny smiled, feeling familiar warmth in her heart at the goodness within Harry. A purity that should have been impossible with the terrible life this young man had led. "Take as long as you need Harry." She said quietly, looking into his eyes. "We'll wait as long as you need us to."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny decided she should get back to the Burrow before anyone noticed she was gone, and Harry decided to follow her out to entrance where she left the portkey that would take her back home.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry," Ginny said as they stopped at the entrance and looked into each other's eyes, "I want you to know that the door to the Burrow is always open for you. Drop by for dinner one of these days." Ginny said, trying to keep pleading and hope from her voice.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Maybe." Harry said quietly. A moment of silence fell upon the two of them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well, remember, you still have to give Hermione your answer about being the godfather to her and Ron's baby!" Ginny said cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Right. I can't believe they're having a kid." Harry grinned. "How is it with a pregnant Hermione hanging around?'

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh Merlin, it's terrible," Ginny laughed, "She's full of hormones and mood swings! She sent Ron out at three A.M. to get something she called sushi."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry couldn't help himself as he laughed along with Ginny. "I can't believe Ron was awake at three A.M., much less how he was going to find sushi." Harry said in between his mirth.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Trust me, when Hermione is screaming into your ear, you will wake up." Ginny said, smiling as she remembered her younger days when Hermione stayed in her room. "I don't think I've ever seen Ron run that fast."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ They laughed for a few more moments, till Ginny had to go. "Well Harry, thanks for inviting me over." Ginny said, smiling at him, unsure whether to offer him her hand or hug him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Thank you, Ginny," Harry replied, "Thanks for helping me out."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I forgot my promise once Harry." Ginny replied, "I'm not going to forget again."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ With that, she grasped the portkey, and was gone.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And for some reason, the Marauder's Castle felt empty and dead to Harry.