As Black Horizons Blue, Chapter Three, Endless Warring . . . Silent Stars

Harry and I spent the remainder of the break behaving when accompanied by Ron and Hermione, and doing the best we could not to when they were absent. In this, we put the Invisibility Cloak to good use and found a new use for the Room of Requirement.

I must tell you, reader, that as much as our passion was disposed to lust, it was also inclined to quarrel. As often as we made love, we were arguing about my position in this war. As much as I understood his want mor my safety, I could not help but think of my mother's clock, where my hand had hovered over "Mortal Peril" longer than a year. As noble as his protection was, I could only indict it as futile.

I begged him to at least tell me what he was after on his journeys, but he would not budge on the matter. Though infuriating, it was also enrapturing, as I found his resistance as endearing as it was maddening. He, I ascertained by the soft smiles and the dancing glint in his eye when I broached the subject, felt the same. I knew he would never tell me, but I could not have lived with myself if I had given up, just as I knew he had not wished me to quit my interrogations.

Before term resumed, I did sneak a look at his diary in the cover of night. I learned of the Horcruxes; however, owing to the need to digest such a tremendous undertaking, I set the book aside after only a few pages, and did not gain another chance to glimpse it.

After a few days, term began again, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione were lost to the mysteries of Hogwarts. I do not know how long they abided after Christmas, but I knew they planned to travel through the coming months, and perhaps return in the Spring.

My life continued on as usual. Classes were going well, we won our last Quidditch match, gaining the house cup again.

I kept up regular correspondence with Charlie and Mum, and after a night of frightful dreams at the beginning of May, a letter from Charlie barely dodged my coffee. In it, he detailed his latest attempt to occupy our mother. Everything he tried, from gardening to shopping, to starting her own shop were all rejected stubbornly. So, she continued to stay home and bake and hover about that blasted clock that never changed. With a sigh, I tucked the letter away and started on my breakfast of coffee and toast as frustrated with my mother as ever.

This time, she had actually lectured Charlie for an hour on meddling pointlessly where nothing needed to be changed. Though afterward, she'd gone to lie down. Evidently, she had often taken to stealing a nap when she thought it might go unnoticed and sleeping later, leaving Charlie and Dad to their own breakfast. She had become thin and pale, and the house was slowly becoming more cluttered and messy then usual. Dad was even beginning to worry.

I was angry with her for allowing herself to be destroyed. She was worrying so much about the rest of the family that she had become the one about whom we were most concerned. She was in more danger than the lot of us. Dad didn't know how to handle her falling apart, and did the best he could, but he was over worked, and as Charlie wrote, horribly exhausted.

I had lost my appetite and was gathering my school bag when a small, twittering owl landed on my plate. "Pig!" I smiled as I took the letter from his beak. I opened it to find only a blank parchment. Confusion crossed my brow before I smiled again and tapped it with my wand, whispering, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

A message appeared:

Ginny,

Meet me at midnight in the usual place. Don't worry, it's good news.

--Harry

I tapped the parchment and the text disappeared. My head had filled with a pleasant mist, very much like the heady fires Trelawney's tower, and all concerns about my mother were overshadowed by the pleasant prospect of seeing Harry.

At five-til midnight, I slipped out the portrait hole and padded down the corridor to the where the blank space of wall should have been. There was a door already there. I opened it, stepped onto the Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch, and shut the door behind me.

Harry stood in the center of the pitch, the invisibility cloak draped over his arm. "What do you think?" he asked as I neared him.

"Brilliant!" I laughed and jumped into his arms. We kissed quickly and stood embracing each other for several subsequent minutes. He smelled my hair often, and his stance was tense, despite the relaxing atmosphere.

"I have something to tell you," I whispered.

"In a minute," he breathed, breaking away to spread the cloak on the turf.

The first year Harry and I were intimate, it happened often that when he intimated his need, my brain would cease to function properly, and I would be lost to lust. This case was no different: I joined him on the makeshift bed where passion took control of all fear and anxiety and molded it into bittersweet love making.

Afterward, he wrapped the two of us in the cloak, and we lay watching the silent stars on the false sky. Neither of us moved or spoke for what was most probably an hour. I did not think. I noted the feel of his chest rising and falling against my back. One of his hands played with my hair as he liked to do. The other rested on my abdomen. I absently reached behind me and scratched his neck, just inside his hair line, which caused him to sigh, and incline his head into my touch. Some of the tension evaporated like water bubbling steam out of a kettle.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" he said sleepily.

I turned to face him. "I had a dream that you defeated Voldemort."

"Well, that's a good dream, right?" He asked.

I shook my head. "He took me, and you used so much energy saving me that you went into a coma once Voldemort was gone. When they found us, we were both unconscious. They took us to St. Mungo's. When I woke, you weren't there, so I searched for where they put you." I sat up. "Harry, when I reached the ward where you had been taken, there was a portrait of you."

He sat too, alerted to what it meant to have a portrait of him hanging in the wizarding hospital. "Beneath the portrait was a plaque that read 'The Harry J. Potter Memorial Ward, The Boy Who Vanquished the Dark Lord: 31 July, 1980–14 July 1998.' When I asked a passing Healer the date, she said it was 15 July. I had missed you by a day. Just then, your portrait woke, and you looked so happy to see me. You said that you wished you could kiss me–and that's it, I woke after that."
Harry wiped at my cheek as if to wipe away a tear, even though I was not crying. He held me close, lying back on the cloak. He kissed my face, my neck, and my shoulders. I knew he did not know what to say in response. We both knew my dream was an entirely plausible outcome of Harry's stand off with the Dark Lord. I knew what he wanted to say though. He wanted to cry out that it would be impossible. Voldemort did not know about us—he couldn't. he had been too careful.

He grew tense again. It was pouring off him, and pooling in my muscles. I massaged his back in attempt to calm myself. Finally, he sat and retrieved his robes, pulling them over his lap. He gazed up at me from beneath his fringe. I smoothed it out of his face as I covered my chest with the cloak.

"I…" he began, "I have been preparing myself for all possible outcomes. I have already made out my will–Don't give me that look Ginny. You know I have to consider it. I've left everything to your family. You all deserve it more than I do anyway."

"And if you survive?" I asked. "What then?"

"I've got to have something to live for, so I have made other, happier arrangements."

I watched him closely, I could not imagine what other arrangement he might have made. He already had friends, and a family. We all had confidence that he would be victorious, even the wavering reality of admitting that he might not make it came upon us, we did not waver in our belief that Harry would bring Voldemort to his end.

I know I must have appeared confused, because his gaze, which had been set in determination only a moment before, softened, and he reached out to give my hand a squeeze. " I've been looking into some possibilities, seeing how well things might work out sooner rather than later. I haven't told Ron and Hermione, but they know I've been preoccupied with something, but I haven't told anyone."

"So, what is it already?" I asked, annoyed at his rambling.

He chuckled arrogantly, and I gritted my teeth. If it was all so funny, why could he not just get on with it?

"They don't even know where I went last weekend when I disappeared. I went to Gringott's and some shops in London. I made a few other secret stops. They won't quit asking me about it."

"What did you do, then?"

To my dismay, he began fiddling with his robes again. As he idly straightened them, I wanted to wrench them from him and force him to tell me what it is he was so desperately trying to put off.

"I've been thinking a lot about what would be good enough," he said, at last. "What one thing would be good enough to bring me back from the brink of death? If I were despairing, what would give me hope? It reminded me of patronuses, and all the thing I've thought to produce one: my parents, Ron and Hermione, Sirius, and you. Lately, I always think of you. I think about how fiery and independent you are, and how passionate you can be when we make love."

I looked to the ground, where my leg would have been had the cloak not been hiding it. His honesty, I thought, deserved the sort of reverence that came with prayer, and I dared not look at his face. I allowed my eyes to watch his hands, and mind to ponder what he was saying. He reached into the pocket at the chest of his robes, and grasped something small enough to hide in his fist. I realized, finally, what he was doing: I was terrified.

I met his gaze again, and he said, "I was thinking, if you and I both survive this war, then maybe we could get married." He held out a gold band, bearing a single diamond at the crest. "What do you say?"

Most girls would have been overjoyed to have Harry Potter propose to them naked in the starlight. I, on the other hand felt my eyes widen in terror, and the fear that had plagued me before Christmas came rushing back with anger as her fellow.

"I say that I do not like you planning my bloody future for me, and I'll be damned if I let you get away with it."

He did not back down, he never did. "I thought you would like it to be a surprise. Don't most girls like their proposal to be a surprise?"

"Most do, but lucky for you, I'm not one of those girls who's whole existence centers around her wedding day," I spat, attempting to force the image of me surrounded by seven black-haired babies out of my head. "I would like to know if my boyfriend is thinking it might be nice to own me, thank you."

"Own you? Ginny what are on about?"

He reached for me, but I had already stood and begun to dress. "I am saying that if you wanted someone to cook your food, wash your dishes, clean your house, and warm your bed, then you should have told me when the idea first occurred to you. I would have directed you to a suitable house elf and saved us both a lot of wasted time and emotion."

Harry scowled at me, and placed the ring on his small finger for safe keeping. He stood squarely in front of me, naked in all his skinny glory. "Ginny, what do you think marriage is?"

The wavering quality of my anger, proved itself, and it began to abate, I hung my head. "I don't want to end up like my mother. Did you know she's ill, Harry? She's killing herself slowly because she doesn't think he has anything else to do. I don't want that. I want to have a career and maybe kids someday. But when I do, I don't want to be stuck at home, taking care of the house and worrying myself to death. I want to have the choice to be something else. Because, every time I look at my mother, I just see a woman trapped in her house, slave and master to all of us." It was all true, I was afraid of becoming nothing more than a housewife. I saw the trap I had seen looming last summer open and prepare itself to snap shut over me. I had no control to stop it. "I want to be my own person, known for my own right, not just because you were gracious enough to take in the poor pureblood witch that looks like your mother."

"Is that what you think of me?" He asked with a tremor of anger or despair in his voice; I could not tell which.

"No, Harry, I don't. I know you would never force me into a situation like my mother's." All my indignance had washed itself away, as I watched him gather himself. I could tell that I had almost destroyed him with what I said, just as he had nearly broken me. As his eye finally met mine, I could see relief overpower the pain hiding within the emerald green.

I let his arms envelope me, and I kissed his neck in apology. "Is that what you really think of your mother?

"It's what I know of her. . ."

"But don't you think she chose to be a housewife of her own accord?"

I snorted. "I suppose she did, but that's not what I want."

"Well, then I guess it's a good thing I'm not asking that of you, isn't it?" He kissed my forehead, and I pulled back to gauge his response to my next question.

"Then what are you asking of me?"

He smiled sheepishly, and I knew that I had my Harry back, the way I knew him best. Stubborn as he was, he wasn't supposed to act arrogant. He wasn't supposed to ask me to marry him like it was a business proposition. He would have done much better if he would have just asked me, laying back on the cloak. If he could have been looking up at the stars, saying "If we make it through this, will you marry me, Ginny?" We would have been well on by now if he had. As I was contemplating this, I was startled by his next question: "Why did you have sex with me for the first time?"

"What has that got to do with anything?" I spluttered.

"Humour me," he chuckled, and I did.

"I figured you had enough stress to be getting on with, and I didn't think adding to it with sexual frustration was bright. You deserved some sort of relief, and as I was able to aid you. As that's about all I'm able to do for you just now, I was glad to do it."

I grinned at the memory of our clumsy, anxious first joining, as Harry's eye began to glow. I wrapped my arms around his waist and kissed the tip of his nose as he asked, "And why, exactly, did you feel it was right to perform this service for me?"

"To show you that I love you—that I believe you can beat him—that I'll always love you."

He kissed me on the mouth. "That's all I want from you, Gin. I just want you to love me."

"Is it really that simple?" I asked, unsure.

He nodded. "You know I would never ask you something you did not want to do. If you're ever unhappy, just tell me. We'll fix it, OK?"

I nodded, and buried my head in his chest. "Why do you want to marry me?" I asked, my voice muffled by his body.

"I told you, I love you, and nothing I could think of would make me as happy as the prospect of having you with me for the rest of my life. I want to celebrate that after this mess is finished. Once he is destroyed, we all need to celebrate the good there is in this world. We need to make a fresh start. I can't think of a better way, can you?"

I fingered the ring which rested upon his smallest finger. "You don't expect me to stay home and raise a horde of children?"

"Not unless you decide you want to."

"I want to be a curse breaker, like Bill."

"I think I can live with that," he said, and started kissing me slowly. He flung my robes aside, and we made love a second time that night. Even though neither of us vocalized it, we both knew that this would likely be the last time we'd have together before Harry was to face Voldemort.

Dawn was approaching, but the stars on the false pitch had not moved or faded. We dressed, and made to head back to our rooms. Before Harry could drape his cloak about us, I clutched his right hand, the one with the ring on it, and said, "I believe you have something of mine."

He smiled, and slid the jewel onto my left ring finger, where it became invisible. "Just until this is over," he said, kissing me as the cloak fell over my shoulders.

You mustn't suspect, reader, that I was at peace with my lot now that I was engaged. On the contrary, I longed to be out with Harry even more. I yearned to try my hand at protecting him, if I could. This, coupled with a letter I had received from Ron just two weeks before Harry's return caused my want to sore to near painful heights.

Ron's letter detailed a particularly nasty situation, resulting from some obscure bit of their mission. The exact events were vague, per Harry's orders. I had not wizened any of them to my knowledge of the Horcruxes, but I was able to ascertain that they were attempting to destroy one of them when Hermione overlooked a nasty shield charm. She had muttered some charm and was thrown back into a wall by the magic protecting the artifact. Ron wrote that she'd been unconscious for a few hours from the attack, and awoke complaining of an aching abdomen, though this was to be expected as the full force of the curse hit her in the stomach. Other than that, she seemed to suffer no ill-effects.

The good news though, and the true point of the letter, was for Ron to showcase his recent accomplishment of becoming ambidextrous at last. He had learned how to manage his wand with his left hand just as well as he had ever been able to do with his right; and even more impressively, his handwriting was entirely legible.

Though I was relieved to learn that my brother was once again able to protect himself properly, I was not deterred from wondering with what spell it was that Hermione had been hit. Out of concern for her welfare, I delved into the library's restricted section, researching every spell I could find that fit the description in Ron's letter. I found a host of horrid effects from aggressive shield charms. There were some which manifested themselves differently according to the gender of the person attacked. For women, some might result in any array of ailments from slow paralysis to barrenness. Many had delayed effects, which could manifest anywhere from a few months to fifteen years (in the longest known case); many such known victims lost sight, hearing, and control over less pleasant bodily functions.

I owled Hermione with my findings, simply to warn her of the possibilities. She sent back a curt reply to inform me she knew all probably outcomes, and that I would do better not to stick my nose into matters that were not my own. I had sighed loudly to myself wondered if one's temperament could be altered by such dark charms, but I could not find any documented cases.

Though I never heard another thing from Hermione about how she was faring, I never forgot about the incident. Ron, it seems, did not either. We agreed to keep an eye out for any sign of illness, so it was not surprising then, three years later when she suffered an "unexpected" breakdown. In 1998, however, it was just another concern I shunted to the recesses of my mind until such a time as need retrieved it.