Sorry this took so long, my computer is having a wonderful time lately (did anyone catch the sarcasm?)... Anyway, I will update all of my stories ASAP! Thanks for sticking with me.
ME
p.s. I don't own HP, but wish I did because JK is RICH!
Chapter 20
Don't Call Me By My Real Name
Harry tore out of the empty room like he was on fire. He knew something like this was bound to happen. It always did. He was not going to bother Ron and Hermione with this though, they were getting married come morning and did not need the extra stress, especially Hermione, who had revealed to Harry months before while planning her wedding, seriously considered becoming a chain-smoker.
So Harry did what was natural to him, he went to his room, grabbed his invisibility cloak and his slightly dusty, yet useful still The Marauder's map. He was after all a marauders son, so he better well be able to locate her if she was in the castle of the castle grounds.
Harry's impulsive days of taking off were not necessarily over, but he now knew better than to just leap off after a half formed plan had taken flight in his head. No, years of experience and training had taught him all too well to check to obvious first. He spread his map out over a table in the common room. He saw a dot labeled Hermione Granger-Weasley pacing back and forth in her room and the dot of Ronald Weasley was already stationary in his room. Harry glanced back at Hermione's dot, Hermione Granger-Weasley? He had expected her to keep her last name as well, but why would the map already be showing it? Unless, you have got to be kidding, there was no way they would already have been married and not mentioned it to anybody, would it?
Harry had no time to ponder the craziness of his best friends, he had someone else very dear to his heart to find. He flipped through the map until he finally found who he was looking for, there she was, wondering around, "Blime!" exclaimed Harry. "What on earth would she be doing back there unless, unless. Harry was thinking hard, "that's impossible," Harry thought to himself, "He's dead, I killed him, he is..." Harry picked up his map, wand and cloak and booked it to the Chamber of Secrets.
Ginny was having nothing close to a good time, after talking to Harry, her anxiety level had spiked sharply. All of the wedding talk and such was likely to drive her mad. As well as being back at Hogwarts, Hogwarts was like her second home. Everything about it brought back memories of a painful and many times dangerous childhood. She couldn't complain though, it had been exciting, but with all the old memories around every corner, came all of the old feelings about a certain man she was supposed to be well over. But there he happened to be, at ever turn. He was not making getting married easy on her. Marriage was supposed to be the happiest thing in her life, Mick was a good guy, really, he was, despite his human flaws. And he had never almost gotten her killed, never. But was that really what she wanted? To become a typical American suburban housewife of a witch?Ginny had wondered all around the castle until she came to the second most traumatic place she'd ever been. The entrance to the chamber of secrets. For some reason she could not get the valve to spin like it did. Probably because she didn't speak parsletongue. Immediately she began thinking of Harry. She knew she needed to see the chamber on last time. To attempt some kind of pathetic closure, so she could be sure all of this had really happened to her. Some how she needed to be able to remember to be able to forget and move on. She thought she had forgotten, then she began seeing him again. She knew he had all of same nightmares as her , if not worse. Ginny again tried at the tap to the facet, it would not spin properly to allow her down. She heard a whispering/ hissing noise behind her. The tap glowed and began to spin violently. The tunnel opened and she went down. She followed the tunnel, miles beneath the school and clambered through the cave-in she had scrambled out of years before. Before she knew it she arrived at another wall, with snakes guarding it. Again the strange hissing and the snakes moved and gave her entrance to the chamber. She walked along its floor. She gasped, the skeleton of the snake still lay there, after all these years, with one fang missing. She knew were it was. Ginny sat down on the floor and began to talk, she knew nobody could hear her. She knew nobody would answer, but somehow she had managed to get down here, even though she didn't speak snake. She laughed, life was bizarre.
"So, chamber that almost killed me, I'm back again. You know, my life could have been drastically different if all of his had never happened? I may have led a normal life, been able to have a normal job and not spend a good 80 percent of my life living in fear that everyone I loved would die. That's right everyone. And now they are all safe, and breathing, and acting like there is nothing wrong with the world! Breaking up the Auror Department, leaving only a couple on active duty, and the rest on reserve. And now in order to pretend I have lived a normal life, I must move away from all of this.What bull, this is so..."
"Unfair?" A voice she recognized came from behind her.
"Who said that?" Ginny quickly checked, no he wasn't there. What was going on? She had no idea so she continued, " I have to move, so I can stop having physical reminders of all this madness, but everytime I close my eyes, I'm there again. I'm back here in this chamber, back out in the cave, being tortured, seeing things a young teenage girl shouldn't be told about least of all experience. And I survived! YOU HEAR THAT? I SURVIVED! I am alive, and now I can do with my life what I wish!"
The voice interrupted her again, "But are you doing what you wish, what you really desperately truly want in your heart?"
"Listen buddy, I have no idea if you an actual voice of a person or not, but I'm in control of my life, and I know what's I'm doing!"
"But are you doing what you want?"
"I know what I'm doing! Why are you questioning me? Who the heck are you anyway?"
"You still haven't answered me Ginevra, are you doing what you want with your life? Your completely right, your doing exactly what you want. But do you really want it? Are you making a mistake?"
"Of course I am doing what I want, I- "
"Your being compulsive, instead of dealing with what happened your running away, escaping your past, when you know there is someone who knows exactly what you went through, because he was there with you!" The voice was challenging her.
"You know what, nobody went through what I did, nobody can follow me here, where I wanted to vent, and start telling me someone, somewhere understands my pain, my nightmares, not my parents, no Luna, not Neville, not any therapist, not Bill, not Charlie, not Percy, not Fred, not George, not Ron, not Hermione, not-"
The voice stopped her, "Not even Harry?" Harry chose this time to drop his cloak and reveal himself. "Ginny, I know exactly what happened in this chamber, and what happened in the cave, I was there, I saved you and whether you will ever believe it or not, you saved me in many ways. By running off with that bloody American ,you taking the only person who can help me away, you. And you taking the only person you can help you, me and you might as well be throwing me off a cliff. You need me Ginny, and I need you. And you running away and changing your name, don't act like you weren't going to try it, and ignoring me for the rest of your life is going to change of help matters, because we both know the truth."
Ginny was stunned, the voice she had been arguing with had been Harry. He was telling her everything she needed to hear, and she suddenly wanted to hear more but wouldn't let herself. She flew into her defense mode. "Do NOT tell me what I do and don't need to be doing! You don't know what I need."
It was Harry's turn to be angry, "I know exactly what you need, you need somebody who isn't afraid to yell back at you. Who won't take you shit, you need somebody who will confront you at any time. YOU need SOMEBODY who will make you laugh to the point where you pee your pants, and understand why your laughing. YOU NEED SOMEBODY who will hold you when cry like its the end and the world, and the person will understand completely why your scared, angry and confused. YOU need SOMEBODY who will be able to rescue you-"
"I don't always need to be rescued-" Ginny interjected.
"-When you've gone and gotten yourself in any type of a jam. Mick is not that type a man Ginny, he just isn't. He don't know how you got that scar on your knee, from when you were 13 years old and trying to prove to your brothers you were just as good as them, you did it, even though it was pouring rain and lightning and your mother was having a heart attack! He does not know how you got that scar on your upper arm, from when you were trapped in that cave, and Wormtail sliced you open for blood with that knife. Mick doesn't completely understand the fear you felt. But I do, because I lived through it with you. We lived through it together. Let us live out the rest of our days together."
Ginny paused for a minute to let all that information in. Then she blurted out, "Lived is devil spelled backwards."
Harry laughed, "Well, I suppose it is. Well, I'll be a devil if you'll be my angel? We can live that way no?"
"I'm not an angle Harry," Ginny sighed. "And you certainly are not devil."
"That is true, on both counts. I'm not the smartest of guy, Gin, nor the most talented-"
"HARRY! Your the most talented wizard in centuries! YOU CANNOT DENY THAT!"
"Maybe not Gin, but all the power in the world still makes me quite an idiot."
Ginny didn't respond.
"So please, I guess I'm trying to say, let me be your idiot. Don't marry Mitt, or Mick or whatever name he chooses to be called. Don't leave the country. Stay with me here, at Hogwarts, I've accepted the position as deputy headmaster, in a few years Dumbledore wants me to succeed him. McGonagol seems to have lost he ambition. And if you wish, I'm quite sure I can get you a position here. Come on Gin, isn't is tempting?"
It was, but what could Ginny do? She started crying, "Harry, for crying you loud! Do you love me or do you want me to move here with you just to become some spinster!"
"I love you Ginny!" Harry stepped closer to her, yet she stepped back.
"Well, I'm sorry Harry, but I've already made my promise, and I can't, I can't-"
"You can't or you won't Ginevra?" Harry had a feeling he was going to lose.
"DON'T CALL ME BY MY REEAALL NAME! You always do this to me Harry, just when I think I'm happy and going to get what I truly want, you always seem to blow things for me."
"Or do I show you something you've always wanted and never dared dream possible. I love you, no matter what name you decide you be call Ginevra, or where you live, you who you think you love. Nothing you do or say to me can change that. I'll always be here, at Hogwarts, waiting for you."
Ginny was speechless, a man she had loved her whole life loved her back, and now she was going to break his heart. "Listen Harry, I don't want to hurt you but, I can't hurt Mick, he's a good guy, and your nice too but, he spoke up first."
Harry didn't even need to take out his wand, his anger was enough to blast part of the chamber. "THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO ME!" Then he calmed slightly and Ginny looked slightly less frightened, he went to say something when Ginny erupted.
"WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THAT!? Any time your angry or stress things break. THAT IS NOT NORMAL HARRY!"
"NEITHER IS RUNNING AWAY GINNY! YOU DO IT EVERYTIME SOMETHING IS NOT GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN!"
"Maybe I'm scared Harry," Ginny answered in a calm voice.
"That doesn't mean you have to go and take off."
"No, Harry, maybe I shouldn't, but it doesn't mean I should stay where I am."
Harry ran his fingers threw his hair, and was reminded of watching his father do it. "Look, you know how I feel Ginny , do what you want." He turned to walk away, "Oh, and have you thought of how you are going to get back up that tunnel?"
She smiled, "No, not exactly."
"Come on, I'm not leaving you down here alone, you'll catch a cold."
"You don't need to worry about me Harry."
"Clearly Ginny, I do." Harry laughed as he put his arm around her and lead her out the tunnel and magicked the two of them back up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Harry luckily remembered to grab his cloak, map, and wand.
They didn't talk as they walked back to their respective rooms. Ginny sighed as she watched him walk up his stairs, why did it have to be him. Of all of the men in the world, why, when he could be with anyone, did he want to be with her. She had Mick, and he loved her, and wanted to marry her. Even though there was nothing for her to do in America. Oh well, she would just have to wait and see which way the Hippogriff flew. Besides, there was no time to worry about that, Ginny thought as she glanced at the clock, in two hours she had to be up and getting ready with Hermione for the wedding.
ME
p.s. I don't own HP, but wish I did because JK is RICH!
Chapter 20
Don't Call Me By My Real Name
Harry tore out of the empty room like he was on fire. He knew something like this was bound to happen. It always did. He was not going to bother Ron and Hermione with this though, they were getting married come morning and did not need the extra stress, especially Hermione, who had revealed to Harry months before while planning her wedding, seriously considered becoming a chain-smoker.
So Harry did what was natural to him, he went to his room, grabbed his invisibility cloak and his slightly dusty, yet useful still The Marauder's map. He was after all a marauders son, so he better well be able to locate her if she was in the castle of the castle grounds.
Harry's impulsive days of taking off were not necessarily over, but he now knew better than to just leap off after a half formed plan had taken flight in his head. No, years of experience and training had taught him all too well to check to obvious first. He spread his map out over a table in the common room. He saw a dot labeled Hermione Granger-Weasley pacing back and forth in her room and the dot of Ronald Weasley was already stationary in his room. Harry glanced back at Hermione's dot, Hermione Granger-Weasley? He had expected her to keep her last name as well, but why would the map already be showing it? Unless, you have got to be kidding, there was no way they would already have been married and not mentioned it to anybody, would it?
Harry had no time to ponder the craziness of his best friends, he had someone else very dear to his heart to find. He flipped through the map until he finally found who he was looking for, there she was, wondering around, "Blime!" exclaimed Harry. "What on earth would she be doing back there unless, unless. Harry was thinking hard, "that's impossible," Harry thought to himself, "He's dead, I killed him, he is..." Harry picked up his map, wand and cloak and booked it to the Chamber of Secrets.
Ginny was having nothing close to a good time, after talking to Harry, her anxiety level had spiked sharply. All of the wedding talk and such was likely to drive her mad. As well as being back at Hogwarts, Hogwarts was like her second home. Everything about it brought back memories of a painful and many times dangerous childhood. She couldn't complain though, it had been exciting, but with all the old memories around every corner, came all of the old feelings about a certain man she was supposed to be well over. But there he happened to be, at ever turn. He was not making getting married easy on her. Marriage was supposed to be the happiest thing in her life, Mick was a good guy, really, he was, despite his human flaws. And he had never almost gotten her killed, never. But was that really what she wanted? To become a typical American suburban housewife of a witch?Ginny had wondered all around the castle until she came to the second most traumatic place she'd ever been. The entrance to the chamber of secrets. For some reason she could not get the valve to spin like it did. Probably because she didn't speak parsletongue. Immediately she began thinking of Harry. She knew she needed to see the chamber on last time. To attempt some kind of pathetic closure, so she could be sure all of this had really happened to her. Some how she needed to be able to remember to be able to forget and move on. She thought she had forgotten, then she began seeing him again. She knew he had all of same nightmares as her , if not worse. Ginny again tried at the tap to the facet, it would not spin properly to allow her down. She heard a whispering/ hissing noise behind her. The tap glowed and began to spin violently. The tunnel opened and she went down. She followed the tunnel, miles beneath the school and clambered through the cave-in she had scrambled out of years before. Before she knew it she arrived at another wall, with snakes guarding it. Again the strange hissing and the snakes moved and gave her entrance to the chamber. She walked along its floor. She gasped, the skeleton of the snake still lay there, after all these years, with one fang missing. She knew were it was. Ginny sat down on the floor and began to talk, she knew nobody could hear her. She knew nobody would answer, but somehow she had managed to get down here, even though she didn't speak snake. She laughed, life was bizarre.
"So, chamber that almost killed me, I'm back again. You know, my life could have been drastically different if all of his had never happened? I may have led a normal life, been able to have a normal job and not spend a good 80 percent of my life living in fear that everyone I loved would die. That's right everyone. And now they are all safe, and breathing, and acting like there is nothing wrong with the world! Breaking up the Auror Department, leaving only a couple on active duty, and the rest on reserve. And now in order to pretend I have lived a normal life, I must move away from all of this.What bull, this is so..."
"Unfair?" A voice she recognized came from behind her.
"Who said that?" Ginny quickly checked, no he wasn't there. What was going on? She had no idea so she continued, " I have to move, so I can stop having physical reminders of all this madness, but everytime I close my eyes, I'm there again. I'm back here in this chamber, back out in the cave, being tortured, seeing things a young teenage girl shouldn't be told about least of all experience. And I survived! YOU HEAR THAT? I SURVIVED! I am alive, and now I can do with my life what I wish!"
The voice interrupted her again, "But are you doing what you wish, what you really desperately truly want in your heart?"
"Listen buddy, I have no idea if you an actual voice of a person or not, but I'm in control of my life, and I know what's I'm doing!"
"But are you doing what you want?"
"I know what I'm doing! Why are you questioning me? Who the heck are you anyway?"
"You still haven't answered me Ginevra, are you doing what you want with your life? Your completely right, your doing exactly what you want. But do you really want it? Are you making a mistake?"
"Of course I am doing what I want, I- "
"Your being compulsive, instead of dealing with what happened your running away, escaping your past, when you know there is someone who knows exactly what you went through, because he was there with you!" The voice was challenging her.
"You know what, nobody went through what I did, nobody can follow me here, where I wanted to vent, and start telling me someone, somewhere understands my pain, my nightmares, not my parents, no Luna, not Neville, not any therapist, not Bill, not Charlie, not Percy, not Fred, not George, not Ron, not Hermione, not-"
The voice stopped her, "Not even Harry?" Harry chose this time to drop his cloak and reveal himself. "Ginny, I know exactly what happened in this chamber, and what happened in the cave, I was there, I saved you and whether you will ever believe it or not, you saved me in many ways. By running off with that bloody American ,you taking the only person who can help me away, you. And you taking the only person you can help you, me and you might as well be throwing me off a cliff. You need me Ginny, and I need you. And you running away and changing your name, don't act like you weren't going to try it, and ignoring me for the rest of your life is going to change of help matters, because we both know the truth."
Ginny was stunned, the voice she had been arguing with had been Harry. He was telling her everything she needed to hear, and she suddenly wanted to hear more but wouldn't let herself. She flew into her defense mode. "Do NOT tell me what I do and don't need to be doing! You don't know what I need."
It was Harry's turn to be angry, "I know exactly what you need, you need somebody who isn't afraid to yell back at you. Who won't take you shit, you need somebody who will confront you at any time. YOU need SOMEBODY who will make you laugh to the point where you pee your pants, and understand why your laughing. YOU NEED SOMEBODY who will hold you when cry like its the end and the world, and the person will understand completely why your scared, angry and confused. YOU need SOMEBODY who will be able to rescue you-"
"I don't always need to be rescued-" Ginny interjected.
"-When you've gone and gotten yourself in any type of a jam. Mick is not that type a man Ginny, he just isn't. He don't know how you got that scar on your knee, from when you were 13 years old and trying to prove to your brothers you were just as good as them, you did it, even though it was pouring rain and lightning and your mother was having a heart attack! He does not know how you got that scar on your upper arm, from when you were trapped in that cave, and Wormtail sliced you open for blood with that knife. Mick doesn't completely understand the fear you felt. But I do, because I lived through it with you. We lived through it together. Let us live out the rest of our days together."
Ginny paused for a minute to let all that information in. Then she blurted out, "Lived is devil spelled backwards."
Harry laughed, "Well, I suppose it is. Well, I'll be a devil if you'll be my angel? We can live that way no?"
"I'm not an angle Harry," Ginny sighed. "And you certainly are not devil."
"That is true, on both counts. I'm not the smartest of guy, Gin, nor the most talented-"
"HARRY! Your the most talented wizard in centuries! YOU CANNOT DENY THAT!"
"Maybe not Gin, but all the power in the world still makes me quite an idiot."
Ginny didn't respond.
"So please, I guess I'm trying to say, let me be your idiot. Don't marry Mitt, or Mick or whatever name he chooses to be called. Don't leave the country. Stay with me here, at Hogwarts, I've accepted the position as deputy headmaster, in a few years Dumbledore wants me to succeed him. McGonagol seems to have lost he ambition. And if you wish, I'm quite sure I can get you a position here. Come on Gin, isn't is tempting?"
It was, but what could Ginny do? She started crying, "Harry, for crying you loud! Do you love me or do you want me to move here with you just to become some spinster!"
"I love you Ginny!" Harry stepped closer to her, yet she stepped back.
"Well, I'm sorry Harry, but I've already made my promise, and I can't, I can't-"
"You can't or you won't Ginevra?" Harry had a feeling he was going to lose.
"DON'T CALL ME BY MY REEAALL NAME! You always do this to me Harry, just when I think I'm happy and going to get what I truly want, you always seem to blow things for me."
"Or do I show you something you've always wanted and never dared dream possible. I love you, no matter what name you decide you be call Ginevra, or where you live, you who you think you love. Nothing you do or say to me can change that. I'll always be here, at Hogwarts, waiting for you."
Ginny was speechless, a man she had loved her whole life loved her back, and now she was going to break his heart. "Listen Harry, I don't want to hurt you but, I can't hurt Mick, he's a good guy, and your nice too but, he spoke up first."
Harry didn't even need to take out his wand, his anger was enough to blast part of the chamber. "THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO ME!" Then he calmed slightly and Ginny looked slightly less frightened, he went to say something when Ginny erupted.
"WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THAT!? Any time your angry or stress things break. THAT IS NOT NORMAL HARRY!"
"NEITHER IS RUNNING AWAY GINNY! YOU DO IT EVERYTIME SOMETHING IS NOT GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN!"
"Maybe I'm scared Harry," Ginny answered in a calm voice.
"That doesn't mean you have to go and take off."
"No, Harry, maybe I shouldn't, but it doesn't mean I should stay where I am."
Harry ran his fingers threw his hair, and was reminded of watching his father do it. "Look, you know how I feel Ginny , do what you want." He turned to walk away, "Oh, and have you thought of how you are going to get back up that tunnel?"
She smiled, "No, not exactly."
"Come on, I'm not leaving you down here alone, you'll catch a cold."
"You don't need to worry about me Harry."
"Clearly Ginny, I do." Harry laughed as he put his arm around her and lead her out the tunnel and magicked the two of them back up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Harry luckily remembered to grab his cloak, map, and wand.
They didn't talk as they walked back to their respective rooms. Ginny sighed as she watched him walk up his stairs, why did it have to be him. Of all of the men in the world, why, when he could be with anyone, did he want to be with her. She had Mick, and he loved her, and wanted to marry her. Even though there was nothing for her to do in America. Oh well, she would just have to wait and see which way the Hippogriff flew. Besides, there was no time to worry about that, Ginny thought as she glanced at the clock, in two hours she had to be up and getting ready with Hermione for the wedding.