A/N: There was a lot of now AU stuff in this chapter. It would've taken a lot of work to change it any more than I have so I've just left most of it in and I hope you don't mind. I'm sure it'll be enjoyable all the same. J
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"Ginny knew that all she ever wanted, but could never have, was standing here in front of her, after hours, holding her arm and daring her to look at him."
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The noise of Harry and Ginny's feet on the marble floor echoed throughout the hallway. Harry glanced over at Ginny for the third time in as many minutes. He opened his mouth to talk and then abruptly shut it again. Ginny looked like she was off in her own world and Harry didn't feel like interrupting, especially since he would probably end up saying something stupid.
Exploding snap tournament? What was I thinking?
The object of Harry's concern was looking out the window into the darkness, seemingly deep in thought as the firelight from the lanterns glinted off her hair. It reminded Harry of the shining Sparkle Wine that Mrs. Weasley let him and Ron have a sip of last Christmas at Grimmauld Place.
That Christmas had been great. Even with all the hell he'd been going through, he'd finally had the chance to spend the holiday with a family that loved him. It had made all the difference.
The most amazing thing was Christmas morning. For a boy that had never even gotten a Christmas present until he went to Hogwarts, the morning that probably seemed normal to the Weasleys was an unfamiliar wonder.
Harry had awoken to the smell of bacon and eggs cooking. It smelled wonderful. He had been just about to open his eyes when Ron started shaking him.
"Harry! Wake up!" Ron had shouted, "Breakfast is almost ready and I don't want Fred and George eating everything before we get down there."
Christmas was the only day of the year in which Ron ever got up earlier than Harry. On every other of the 364 days of the year, at least as far as Harry knew, Ron was a terror to try and wake up. At school Harry'd often had to physically drag Ron out of bed in order to get to their classes on time.
After being woken up, Harry slowly got out of bed. He saw that Ron, who was impatiently waiting for him, was staying in his pajamas and decided to do the same. He'd taken a quick look in the mirror to try and fix his hair ('Don't worry about it sleepy, you look just fine'), and continued toward the door with Ron. At the door, Ron had stopped and turned to him smiling.
"Happy Christmas Harry."
"Same to you Ron."
With that said, the two boys had trudged downstairs for a breakfast that rivaled the Sorting Feast at Hogwarts. Like Ron had predicted, the twins were already there eating as much as possible while, at the same time, Mrs. Weasley tried to lecture them for not waiting to eat until the entire family was seated. When everyone, consisting of Harry, Remus, Sirius, and all the Weasleys except Percy, Bill, and Charlie (who were away on work), was seated breakfast officially commenced. It was a raucous affair.
Everyone was talking and laughing and eating and smiling. Mrs. Weasley and Remus were happily having a discussion about Christmas's past. Fred and George were trying to sneak a few suspicious looking pieces of bacon onto Sirius's plate and Ron was trying to tell his mum that they should scrap tradition next year and open presents first. Sirius was too excited about the festivities to notice Fred and George. He was instead involved a lighthearted conversation with Ginny and Mr. Weasley about Muggle music (Mr. Weasley had brought a Muggle radio home to the Burrow the summer before).
Harry had noticed that Sirius's taste was entirely confined to classic rock, while Ginny tended toward popular music. He hadn't been able to categorize Mr. Weasley's taste as it was eclectic and somewhat odd.
Harry spent most of breakfast listening and observing. By the end of the meal Ron had failed to convince Mrs. Weasley that presents should come before a hearty breakfast and Sirius had started sporting multi-colored polka dots during a monologue about the cultural importance of air guitar. All in all, it was quite an enjoyable breakfast.
Once breakfast was finished they moved into the living room to open presents. A large but wispy looking Christmas tree was standing in the corner of the room by the couch and being held up straight by magic. Underneath were piles upon piles of brightly colored and gaudily wrapped presents. Harry had sat down on the couch and was soon joined by Ron and Fred. George tried to squish in also, but Fred pushed him and he ended up sitting on the floor next to Ginny. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sat in an old love seat on the other side of the room and Remus sat in the recliner by the hearth. Sirius got a rickety wooden chair that Bill had made a few years back.
Harry had expected everyone to get their presents and just start opening them. That's how it had always been at Hogwarts. Instead each family member got up one by one, retrieved a present, and set it in a pile in front of a smiling Ginny. When Ron sat back down he had turned to Harry.
"Youngest always goes first," he said with a roll of his eyes. It was one of those traditions that Ron would've loved if he had been the youngest instead of the second youngest.
"Ours first! Ours first!" Fred and George were jumping up and down in anticipation.
Ginny cautiously picked up lumpy neon green package with label that read "To Ickle Ginnykins, From Gred and Forge".
"Should I be worried?" Ginny had asked.
"Not a bit," George replied. Both boys looked almost convincingly innocent. Almost.
When Ginny opened the package it had been almost, but not quite what everyone had been expecting. There had been a loud explosion of course, along with confetti, and a flying assortment of suspicious pieces of candy. Ginny also had neon green hair that matched the package, but she hadn't noticed. She was too entranced by the remaining contents of the box. Her eyes sparkled as she pulled out a sky blue circular object. She smiled widely and then got off the ground, ran over to Fred and George, and hugged them both at the same time.
"Thank you so much! How did you know? How did you get one?" Ginny's voice squealed in excitement.
"We have connections dear sister of ours," Fred said, trying to sound mysterious.
"That and we snuck a peak at your secret Christmas list," George said with a wink, "You know the one that also included a certain per-"
Ginny blushed and gave him a quick slug to the arm.
"Shut up, there is no such list!"
"She can be quite violent at times," Ron said quietly to Harry, "Don't have a clue where she gets it from."
"Only kidding Gin," Fred said, "We heard you talking about wanting one the other day in the kitchen with mum."
"But we weren't joking about our connections," said George.
"Yeah, we'd tell you how we got that fabulous present for you," the two were standing in front of their very confused family and had just pulled out matching sunglasses.
"But then we'd have to kill you," George stated as he put on the sunglasses.
"Weasley," Fred said.
"Fred and George Weasley," George continued.
"Secret agents extrordinare," they said together.
And with that, the twins struck a pose complete with hands as fake guns and then moved stealthily out of the room while humming the James Bond theme song.
"See what happens when you let those boys watch Muggle films," Mrs. Weasley was saying to her husband. Mr. Weasley was attempting to look serious, but was close to bursting out in chuckles.
"I wonder when they'll remember that present opening is still going on," Ron had said to Harry. Harry in turn had asked what the twins had gotten Ginny.
"Oh, I was actually surprised by that too. It's like a muggle radio, plays muggle songs, but you can charm it to play whatever song you'd like to hear whenever you'd like to hear it. Have to pay for the charms too though. It's brand new, just came out. Don't know how Fred and George got one."
"So it's like a CD player?"
"I guess." There was a pause. "What's a CD player?"
Harry turned his attention from the memories of his first real family Christmas and back to Ginny. He suddenly saw a bittersweet smile touch her face and turn into a frown. It didn't look right. Ginny was the type of girl who should have a smile on her face.
Or at least Harry thought she was that type of girl. It suddenly came to his attention that he didn't know Ginny all that well at all. They had known each other for years now, but...
We don't know each other, Harry's mind offered.
That, it seemed, was the crux of the matter and the reason that Harry was having trouble thinking of a way to start a conversation with his best friend's little sister. Not that Harry and Ginny had never spoken to each other before, in fact last year they had become...well, acquaintances I guess you could say.
The fact was that Harry didn't feel like starting up superficial small talk at the moment. That was what most of his conversation with Ginny had consisted of in the past six years. It felt rather unsatisfying.
On the other hand, he couldn't very well bring up the real reason why he had been looking for her and wanted her to come back to the common room. Harry didn't know Ginny that well, but he could imagine that her reaction to the upcoming intervention would involve yelling and storming off somewhere. It left the conversation options a little limited when you couldn't bring up the one thing you wanted to talk to a person about and didn't want to drown in too-polite small talk.
Harry noticed that Ginny's eyes had taken on a haunted look and suddenly felt desperate to take that look away.
"So, what classes are you taking?" So much for not dealing with small talk.
Ginny's eyes lost their glazed appearance at the sudden question and she looked over at Harry in surprise. His bright green eyes had the same concerned look on them, but with a slight edge that hadn't been there earlier. He ran his wand hand through his untidy black hair a moment later and Ginny realized he was waiting for some sort of response. What was his question again...oh!
Harry could almost feel the confused thoughts running through her head and decided that opening his mouth had been a stupid idea. Silence was better anyway. Oh, why is the common room so far away? He was just about to say nevermind and forget the whole thing when Ginny looked up at him and made eye contact.
"Divination, Muggle Studies, Charms, Arithmancy, and Defense Against the Dark Arts," Ginny blurted out. She looked a little taken aback by her outburst at first, but then sighed and smiled. "Oh, and Transfiguration and Potions of course."
It couldn't hurt to have one simple conversation with Harry, right? She could go right back to avoiding him once they reached the common room.
"Wow," Harry started, "that's a lot of…hey, how'd you get out of History of Magic, it's required up 'til 7th year isn't it?"
"Oh that, I passed out of it." Ginny said, feeling slightly more comfortable with the conversation. This was a subject she could handle. "Well, this year and 6th year to be exact."
Harry felt rather confused. "But how?"
"Oh, don't look so shocked, I'm smarter than I let on. To tell you the truth I was surprised that you and Ron didn't try and take the exam, especially after Hermione passed. I'm sure she would've helped you study. She sure helped me. I wouldn't have known Orlin the Obscene from Grolin the Gruesome if she hadn't quizzed me for six weeks straight last term."
Harry's mind suddenly went back to that odd period last term right after Ron and Hermione had gotten into a huge fight and had stopped speaking to each other. He remembered noticing that that Hermione and Ginny had been spending a lot more time with each other. They went down to the library a lot and had been doing an inordinate amount of whispering. They had seemed like they'd been having a lot of fun and Harry had often wanted to go over and talk to them, but figured they were talking about some sort of girly thing that he couldn't be a part of.
So instead, he'd had to sit around for seven weeks listening to Ron mope about Hermione. He'd wanted to be there for his obliviously love-struck friend, but Ron's blabbering became annoying as hell as soon as Harry realized his friend wasn't going to do anything about it.
He remembered sitting in the common room one night playing chess with Ron. The fire was blazing, but it didn't seem to warm the empty loneliness in Harry's heart. Ron was going on about Krum and Justin Finch-Fletchly and frankly any other male that had talked to Hermione in her 16 years of existence, well besides Harry of course. Although Harry didn't doubt that if Ron had someone else to talk to about this sort of thing, that his name would be on the list too.
Ron was so worked up that Harry was winning against him for the first time in his life. Ron had been off on another tangent and had just gotten to the point when he started to mumble under his breath when Harry looked over to the other end of the common room. Descending the stairs that led to the girl's dormitory were Hermione and Ginny, both clutching armfuls of books and chattering happily.
Harry looked closer and saw the quick worried glance that Ginny shot towards their corner of the common room. Her brown eyes noticed the irritated redhead on the couch arguing with his chess pieces and she turned back towards Hermione and started talking with increased vigor. She quickly and expertly guided her friend toward the portrait hole. Even though the common room was relatively crowded that day, no one but Harry had noticed the weighted sigh that Ginny had breathed before she exited the common room, glad that a crisis between her brother and her friend had been averted.
"So that's what you two were doing!" Harry exclaimed, "I'd thought you'd been off doing girl-talk or something."
"Girl-talk?" Ginny was surprised. She was sure that Hermione had told them all about how she'd found out about the test from Professor Binns and passed out of the last required year of History of Magic.
"I mean, if you were talking about …whatever, not that I'd have a problem with it or anything," Harry was fairly sure that he was blushing now and was positive that he was on his way to babbling. Ginny's revelation had thrown him for a loop. "I remember thinking that it was good that Hermione found a girl she could talk to. I'm sure she needs it sometimes when Ron and I are being gits."
Ginny gave him a quiet smile. Her eyes sparkled and Harry had the feeling that she was thinking of a certain time when he had Ron were gits.
Harry would probably be surprised to know how right he was. She was thinking about Valentine's Day last year.
The night before Valentine's Day Hermione had quietly admitted her feelings for Ron during one of their late-night chats in the girl's dormitory and afterwards Ginny had ruefully admitted her continued feelings for The Boy Who Was Oblivious in spite of the fact that she was seeing Michael Corner. The two girls had shared their wishes and hopes for the following day and for the future. The next day Ginny had woken up feeling refreshed and optimistic. However, the day hadn't ended up as the two had hoped. Instead of the Ron becoming a romantic overnight, he hadn't seemed to even realize what day it was. As for Harry, he'd been with Cho Chang at the time and wasn't about to spare her a glace on Valentine's Day. Michael had gotten Ginny a red rose and some chocolates, which was really very sweet, but she knew that things weren't going as they should when she'd had to paste a happy smile on and ignore that she'd just seen Harry walk in to Madame Puddlefoot's with Cho Chang. On top of that, Ron and Harry had both seemed off in their own little world about something. It had annoyed Ginny to no end that she wasn't being included in whatever was going on, but she was used to it. Truth was, it was probably better that she hadn't been included considering what she was dealing with now. It was Hermione, though, who really became furious. Being the boys' friend for five years gave her the right to be. She had ended up calling Ron an idiot to his face right in front of everyone in the common room and then running up to her room. Ginny had taken one look at Ron and Harry's confused faces and then ran after her friend. The sad thing was that the two boys probably hadn't had any idea that they were doing anything wrong.
"I just can't believe she didn't tell us about that. She knows how much I'd love to get out of that class." Harry couldn't seem to believe that Hermione had failed to mention that she'd passed out of a class. She was usually bursting at the seams about stuff like that.
"Well, I'm sure she had other things to think about at the moment. You know," Ginny said conspiratorially, "Like my brother."
Harry looked at Ginny in shock. "How'd you…?"
"How'd I know? Well, I mean it is pretty obvious. Personally, I wish they'd both admit it and be over with it. It's a bit annoying really. Ron can be rather dense at times." Ginny shook her head at the situation Hermione and Ron were in.
"You're telling me," Harry agreed, "Those weeks that the two of you were secretly off discovering a way to pass out of the most boring class in Hogwarts, I was listening to Ron talk about Hermione and complain about every bloke she's ever spoken to."
Ginny laughed at this. Harry liked the sound of it and decided then that he didn't hear it quite enough and would like to more often.
"I can see Ron doing that. It's probably a lot like when he complained after Fred and George started taking away our babysitter's attention. Her name was Lorrie. I think they all kinda fancied her."
Ginny smiled at the memories and saw Harry smiling back at her. It was a nice feeling. She hadn't felt this happy in a long time and who knows the last time she'd actually laughed like she had a second ago. The sick irony of it all, however, was that the person who made her feel this way was the one she had to stay away from. In fact, she was probably putting him in danger right now. But for some reason, Ginny couldn't push Harry away just yet. It was their first real conversation. Maybe she had been overcome by a sudden bout of selfishness or insanity, but Ginny felt that if maybe she could hold on to this moment a little longer, she could somehow make it through all the loneliness ahead.
"You know," Harry said, "I actually won against him twice in chess during those weeks because he was so messed up over Hermione."
Ginny looked up at Harry and couldn't help it when her mouth pulled into a grin at the gleeful sparkle in his emerald eyes.
"Ah," Ginny said with a teasing smirk, "Well, now that you've beaten my brother you should try playing me sometime."
"It would be an honor," Harry replied jokingly. He turned more serious when he noticed Ginny's suddenly somber expression. "Gin, what's up?"
I won't be able to play him in chess, now will I? Ginny's mind had immediately reminded her of her current circumstances after she'd made the previous comment. From there her mind had made the same jump that it had made every night since she'd realized he dreams weren't ordinary nightmares. The jump to the list of things she and Harry could never do. No chess with Harry, no talking with Harry, no helping Harry smile when he's feeling down, no hugging Harry, no kissing Harry, no loving Harry…
"It's nothing, don't worry about it," she answered abruptly.
"Gin, why can't you just tell me what's wrong?" Harry was frustrated. She wouldn't tell him earlier and she wouldn't tell him now. She needs help, why doesn't she just ask for it? The same reason you never want to tell Dumbledore what's going on, his inner voice reasoned.
"Don't call me that!" Ginny hissed. It sounds too intimate, it means you're too close. "And I just can't tell you what's wrong, okay?" Ginny couldn't keep the slight desperation from her voice. "It's for your own good," she whispered under her breath as she turned away.
They walked in silence for a few moments, their footsteps echoing in the corridors. They were getting closer to Gryffindor Tower. Ginny figured they were going to stay silent until they reached the common room, but Harry had other plans. About a hundred yards from the portrait hole Ginny felt Harry's hand grab her arm. She stopped in surprise and turned around to face him. They were alone standing in the hallway, but for all Ginny knew, there could've been a stampede and she wouldn't have noticed. She felt the warmth of Harry's hand on her arm and felt as that same warmth started to spread throughout her body. Ginny knew that all she ever wanted, but could never have, was standing here in front of her, after hours, holding her arm and daring her to look at him. Her eyes started their upward journey with trepidation. His neck, his chin, his lips, and then finally, his eyes. Ginny saw them and they locked with hers. If only I could stay here forever. Harry's eyes had a determined look in them that she usually only saw on the Quidditch pitch.
"Ginny," he said, careful not to shorten her name, "I know what it's like to want to keep problems to yourself so no one else will find out. I know what it's like to have problems that seem impossible." He was still holding her arm and had a more serious look than even Ginny, who had long ago memorized his expressions, was used to seeing. He looked as though a part of him was remembering every problem, every encounter with Voldemort.
"And," he continued, "I know what it feels like when you think you can't talk to anyone about what's going on. But I think you should talk to somebody about whatever it is that's bothering you. Talking about your problems can help a lot. And I'm here if you want to talk to me. But at least talk to somebody. It's tearing you up inside."
Ginny was speechless. She wanted to rail at him that he didn't understand what it felt like, that he couldn't possibly know how alone and helpless she felt, but she knew that in reality he'd probably understand better than anyone. She wanted to hug him for noticing her and then berate herself for not concealing her problem better. In that moment, all she wanted to do was tell Harry Potter everything.
"And Ginny," Harry continued, "I'm not going to pressure you into telling me or anyone else what's going on, but I'm going to keep an eye out for you. And you better be careful."
Ginny felt like she was going to burst into tears at that very moment. She was sure that her eyes were all watery and bloodshot and that her nose was red and that her fair skin was somewhat splotchy. How could she stay away from him when he was everything she ever wanted?
Harry looked down at the red-headed girl in front of him. He hoped what he said had been all right. He hadn't wanted to make her cry. He'd hoped to make her feel better. She was looking at the ground and wiping her eyes. She sniffled and then looked up at him. Her bloodshot brown eyes were tear-filled and Harry didn't think he'd ever felt more protective over another human being in his entire life. What did one do with an almost crying girl though? Harry, who hadn't dealt with this much in his life, took a guess and hoped he was right. He took Ginny Weasley in his arms and hugged her.