I don't own anything that JKR has created.

A/N: Wow, I know this has taken a while. I had originally started this chapter out to be when Hermione would tell Ginny everything, but it turned itself into something completely different. I felt that I had made Harry completely out of character in the beginning of the fic, and I had to justify myself to further the story. The rest is coming I promise. I finally have a day off of life and I intend to use it to write. Also, I realized that I messed up in my chapter count. This is the actual chapter number. Now I have two chapter nines! Lol Eh, oh well…the story must go on. Thanks for reading everyone!

Chapter 9: Collision

It was nearly dawn when Hermione slipped out the kitchen door of The Burrow, making sure not to wake anyone. She knew she would be able to leave before Ginny was awake because she knew her own mind. She knew she would be up all night planning the best way to do what she was plotting in her head. She was figuring out what words to use, how to say it, she was really playing the whole scene over and over in her head, trying to memorize every little detail so that it would go according to plan. Hermione lived by planning for everything.

Ginny awoke to the sunlight warming her face and the smell of breakfast wafting over her nose. She sat up and looked towards Hermione's makeshift bed. The girl was gone. She must be downstairs already; probably wanted to minimize the time she spends alone with me. Oh well, I'll give her some time. I am terribly hungry, and I can smell breakfast. Mmmm…fried eggs… Her stomach crying out for food because it had been denied two meals the day before, she got out of bed and headed towards her dresser.

She didn't notice Hermione's note at first. After selecting what she intended to wear for the day, she tried to close the drawer. It wouldn't budge. "You stupid bloody drawer!" she exclaimed as she tried to close it. "Just…bleeding…close…" she gasped between breaths, as she strained against the drawer. Her teeth were gritted together, and her face was turning purple in a sea of freckles, as she used all the strength she had to force the drawer closed. It finally gave way beneath her, and shut with a loud crack. Ginny almost lost her balance and caught herself by the edge of the dresser. Her impact when the drawer finally closed, sent a tremor throughout all of the trinkets adorning the top of her dresser, and jarred the letter, which had been close the edge to begin with, to the ground.

"What's this?" she asked the room at large, as she bent down to pick it up.

She saw her name written on the outside of the note. Immediately recognizing Hermione's hand writing, she hastily opened it up. She wants to talk? I wonder what she could possibly have to say. She doesn't want me to beat myself up about it anymore so she probably pities me. I don't want anybody's pity, least of all hers. Never the less, curiosity peeked, she quickly finished dressing and tore through her bedroom door. In her rush to meet Hermione, she hadn't noticed Harry had just been passing by her room on his way downstairs, and she collided with him. They both cascaded into the opposite wall, and landed on the floor in a squirming heap of entangled limbs and identical grunts of pain.

"Oh Harry, I'm dreadfully sorry. I didn't see you there," she apologized, face red in embarrassment. He was the last person she had been expecting to see at that very moment. She quickly untangled herself from him and drew back, coming to rest upon her knees in front of him.

"Sorry for what? Not paying any attention to where you were going, or nearly crushing my skull into the wall in your mad rush to… Where are you off to in such a hurry, anyway?" he questioned her, straightening his glasses which had been hanging on by only one ear.

"Why should I tell you…" her voice trailed off as she looked down the stairwell. She could hear Ron and her mother arguing about food again. Thankfully, that argument had covered up the sound of Ginny and Harry's collision, and left them a chance to have a little privacy, if only for a moment. She had been wanting to find out exactly why Harry had turned from her, and why he had been treating her with such contempt since he had arrived. She turned back to him and gazed into his sage colored eyes, eyes that had held her captive so many times in the past. They were now eyes that held her with quiet aloofness. "You don't really care about me anymore," she finally finished her thought.

"I don't care? I DON'T CARE? Ginny, all I ever did was care. I cared too much, that's how I got myself into this mess," he replied, his voice cracking on the last word.

"Harry, what are you going on about now? You're more confusing than Ron sometimes, and that's saying something. If you care so much, why did you leave me, why did you break my heart intentionally?"

"Ginny, you're the most important thing in my life; I love you. That is exactly why I can't be with you. You would be the first person Voldemort would go after, and the last person I would want him to lay his hands on. You are the only thing I want, and the one thing I can't have," irony pervading his last statement.

"I would have done anything for you, gone anywhere with you, even confronted Voldemort by your side. I would have held onto you for all of eternity, but you forced me to let go. I sort of understood it, but that didn't lessen the fact that it hurt, Harry. You didn't even owl while you were at the Dursley's to see if I was okay. Then, when you arrived here, you weren't exactly very nice to me. You haven't been the Harry Potter that I fell in love with lately, and that hurts worse than your leaving me."

"I know…" he said, as he turned away from her.

"Look at me Harry. Tell me why. What did I do to deserve your anger?" Ginny was getting angry herself. "I think I deserve an explanation of why you've been so nasty to me recently."

It seemed to Ginny, that the world had gone completely silent as she awaited his answer. Anger boiled inside of her, but she just barely kept it in check. She tried to assume a posture of nonchalance to hide the raging emotions inside of her.

"I did it for your own good, and mine as well I guess."

"WHAT?" she yelled, the dam holding back her anger finally breaking. "That's not an answer. You're evading the question."

"Ginny, please let me finish," he broke into her venomous retort. "I understand you're angry. Please, try to calm down enough for me to finish."

Ginny had threateningly crossed her arms over her chest. She was barely containing the gauntlet of emotions inside of her, and wanted to lash out at him. Deciding to let him try to explain before she let him have a piece of her mind, she kept her mouth shut.

"Ginny," he said as he placed his hand on her arm.

"Don't touch me," she spat at him as she violently shoved his hand off of her arm. "Explain."

"Sorry," he said morosely as he settled his back against the wall. "I haven't been nice to you because I'm mad at myself. I can't believe I actually left you, but I know that it's what I had to do. With Voldemort after me, I can't have people close to me. I've already lost most of the people I loved to him, and I don't want to lose anyone else. I don't want to lose you or your family, or Hermione for that matter. You guys are the only family I have left. I know I can't do anything about your mum and dad because they are in the order, and Ron and Hermione will blindly follow me wherever I go, because that's just how they are. They aren't worried about themselves, they know the dangers and they accept them. I know you're just as stubborn as the rest of your family, if not more sometimes, so I had to think of a way to make you hate me so you wouldn't follow. The fact that I'm mad at myself for breaking up with you, and the fact that I know it was the right thing to do even if it wasn't what I wanted to do, just made it easier for me to be nasty to you. If I was nasty to you, I knew you would begin to hate me. I wanted to make you not care about me anymore, even though it kills me inside." As he finished his explanation, he gingerly looked into her eyes.

Ginny's anger had evaporated half way through Harry's story, and she was filled with a profound forgiveness for his actions of late. She understood why he did what he did. It was probably something she would have done if the situations had been reversed. She still loved him, she knew she would love him until the end of her days. Their love was just something that couldn't be, at least with the circumstances and events surrounding it.

"Harry, I'm so sorry. I don't even know what to say other than I understand." She began to cry, all the anger that had been welling up inside of her, turning to sorrow. Sorrow for the boy who had literally turned into a man in front of her. Sorrow for the man who would have to face the apotheosis of evil. Sorrow for the man who she would never hold in her arms again. "I realize now that sometimes, there's no other choice than to push the person you love away."

Harry, hugged her and they cried together. Harry crying for the loved ones he'd lost, and the ones yet to parish. Ginny crying for Harry, and the roads he would have to travel in his dark future. When they had finally cried until they had no more tears, Harry helped her up.

Wiping the last of the tears away from her eyes, he said, "Now where exactly were you off to in such a hurry before?"

"Oh, Hermione! I almost forgot! I'm sorry Harry, but I have to go." Resting her hand on his arm, she looked into his eyes and said, "We're okay now right? I know you can't have me as a girlfriend, but I still want to be your friend. I don't want to hate you Harry. No matter what you do, you can't make me disappear."

He smiled the first real smile she'd seen come over his face in days, and replied, "I guess I'm stuck with you then, huh?"

They both laughed at this and she replied, "Always, Harry Potter. You're family, and we Weasley's don't run out on family. Well, except maybe Percy, but he was always the oddball of the bunch!" She turned to leave, and inquired, "I'll see you later then?"

"Sure, Ginny…later," he said as he watched her leap down the stairs two at a time.