Summary: Breaking up is hard, but for Harry and Ginny, staying together isn't an option if they each want the other to be happy.

Title: knowing who I was before

Theme: Beauxbatons - Write about something unforeseeable.

Mandatory Prompt: [Physical appearance] Freckles

Additional Prompt: [Setting] A field

Year: 4

Word Count: 1598

Note: Not Epilogue Compliant, Coming to terms with one's sexuality, mentions of sex and physical intimacy


knowing who I was before

The world can change in the strangest of times and places. It's not something someone can predict before they decide, "Hey, lover, let's go on a picnic on this fine summer afternoon."

It was just a simple, early July day. Harry had cheerfully packed a basket of snacks and a couple of books, a large blanket for them to relax on, and dragged Ginny out to the field not far from the Burrow. It was their place, surrounded by trees and tall grasses for privacy. It was where they'd lain talking far into the wee hours of the morning throughout that first summer after the war. It was where they'd decided their futures—his with the Aurors, hers with Harpies—and where they'd first made love.

And it was where his life would irrevocably alter.

"I never thought it could come to this," Ginny murmured, looking down at her lap. The wind blew her long copper hair across her freckled face, but she didn't push it away. "I thought we'd be together forever."

"Yeah, me too." Harry watched her, his heart crumbling into a thousand tiny parts. This wasn't supposed to happen. They were supposed to get married, have a family, and grow old together. This—what this was—wasn't even on his list of possibilities.

But then, neither was his sexuality.

"I'm sorry," he whispered over the lump in his throat. "I do love you."

She rested her hand on the blanket between them, palm up, small freckles dotting even the tips of her fingers. Harry was more than familiar with those freckles. He'd kissed each of them hundreds of times, eliciting giggles or moans, depending on the moment. He'd never be able to do that again.

He placed his hand in hers, hiding the freckles from sight.

"I know." Ginny was barely audible over the rustle of the grass in the wind. "It's not your fault. It just is."

"Are you sure we should do this?" He hardly recognised his own voice. It was shaky. Panicky. "We could still be happy."

She pulled her hand away and wiped her eyes. Harry hadn't even realised she was crying, but she shook her head when he opened his mouth to say something. "No. No, we couldn't. I want more than that, Harry. I want someone who wants me, desires me. I want someone who looks at me the way I see you look at him."

And there it was. Laid out there for them both to examine. Harry felt raw, exposed, as though Ginny was tearing apart his mind. "Gin, I—"

She let out a watery chuckle. "I'm not blind. And I know you'd never do anything about it. You'd stay with me anyway and always be missing something." She turned to him, her brown eyes as familiar and safe as the grassy field around them. He loved her with every piece of his soul. But, she was right. He didn't, couldn't love her as she wanted.

He'd been trying for three years.

He'd seen it then, after the war, their future laid out for them. The cottage in the Devon countryside, the picket fence, three kids, and a crup. He'd wanted that, wanted her. He'd wanted to belong, to have someone to call his own, a family to love him. He'd not even questioned whether he felt something as basic as sexual desire. The boy married the girl, that was that. And if he sometimes found it difficult to reach his finish when they were intimate, it wasn't as though it'd been a chore. He loved her, and he loved making her happy. She was beautiful. She was vibrant and alive. She was his Ginny.

Except she wasn't his. From now on, she'd be…she'd be…

"Where do we go from here? I can't lose you, Gin. You're my best friend." The tears he'd been holding back, the panic he'd been tampering down, all bubbled out. His eyes settled on a patch of tiny purple flowers nestled in the grass next to the blanket. He'd imagined those same flowers dotting the grass around that fanciful cottage he'd dreamed up that was lost to him now. "Please, say I haven't ruined everything."

She made a noise like a whimper, and suddenly she was on her knees between his outstretched legs. She took his face in her hands. "Listen to me, Harry James Potter. You can't get rid of me that easily. And you didn't do this. I'm the one who started this conversation, remember? I want us both to be happy, and that's not going to happen when you're trying to pretend you're straight."

He choked out a laugh. "Merlin, that sounds weird."

"Harry," she said, her face deadly serious. "You're gay."

His face burned at the word, but he nodded. "Yeah."

She let out a long breath, the soft smell of her favourite cinnamon candy wafting over him. "Right. Enough of this maudlin shit." She jumped up and threw her hands in the air, spinning around.

"What are you doing?" he asked, wiping his arm over his eyes.

"Getting you used to saying it."

"Saying what?"

She grabbed his right hand and pulled him up. "Repeat after me. I'm bent!" she yelled. It echoed through the open field.

Harry pulled his hand away. "What? Stop that!"

"Nope. I'm making it my mission to make sure you're happy, and this is the first step. Do it. The birds in that tree over there want to know."

"Ginny—"

"Harry," she mocked. "Do it."

"Fine. I'm bent."

"Yell it," she ordered, stepping closer and poking him in the chest.

"No!"

"Yes! I like men!" she shouted this time. "Come on, Harry. Are you scared?"

He was. He wasn't afraid of being attracted to men. He'd been slowly realising that fact for a while, but this part, this acknowledging that he wasn't bisexual, that he didn't really want to be with women like that? This was kind of huge. The life he'd dreamed of would never be his, and he had to accept that.

"I'm gay!" he yelled out. It sounded angry, which was weird. He didn't feel angry, did he? He tried again. "I like men!"

Ginny cheered. "Me too!"

A laugh burst out, surprising him. He threw his head back and his arms out, looking up at the blue summer sky, the laughter taking over his body. "I'm bent!"

Ginny clapped, grabbing her wand and shooting sparks that crackled loudly across the field.

A weight he hadn't even known was there lifted from Harry's shoulders, like his soul was suddenly open in a way he'd never known possible. He dropped back down onto the blanket, laying down and continuing to stare up at the sky. Ginny settled down beside him in comfortable silence.

The clouds passed overhead, each one different from the others, but each one equally as beautiful. Like people, he supposed, or like Ginny's freckles.

"Now what?" He hadn't even realised he'd spoken aloud until she answered.

"Whatever you want. We tell my family we're breaking up, I guess, but that we're both okay with it."

"Oh, Merlin, your mum will hate me."

She let her head fall to the side, watching Harry. "You're an idiot. Mum just wants us to be happy. It'll be fine."

"Bill will curse me."

She snorted. "He knows better than to interfere with my decisions. They all do."

He nodded and watched another cloud go by.

"And after that," she continued, as if several minutes of silence hadn't just passed, "we plan what your first move will be with Draco Malfoy."

A wave of anxiety washed over him, his other secret exposed. He sucked in a breath and sat up. "Ginny—"

"Oh, Merlin's saggy balls, Harry. Any idiot can see how attracted you are."

"It's just a work crush. I've never—"

She burst out laughing.

"What? I haven't. I wouldn't!"

Tears of laughter replaced the earlier tear tracks on her cheeks. "I know that, you arsehole. This entire breakup would have gone in a completely different manner if I thought you'd cheated on me. Merlin, it's like you think I don't know you at all."

He let out a huff and fell back again. When she'd just about stopped, the laughs turning into little hiccups, he sighed. "I hope men are going to be easier to understand than women. You're insane."

That was evidently the wrong thing to say, because this time she held her stomach, pulling her knees up as the laughter shook her entire body. "Easier to understand. Slytherin. Malfoy," she choked out between gasps.

He rolled his eyes at her antics, but he couldn't help when his lips turned up into a smile. He leaned over and pushed her hair away from her face, letting his fingers trace the freckles on her cheek one last time. "Thank you, Ginny. I don't deserve you."

She took his hand from her cheek and squeezed it with her own, suddenly serious. "It's going to be okay, you know. You can still have all that stuff you wanted. Kids, a family, a cute little cottage with purple flowers. You'll just have to take a different path to get it."

He thought about that as they packed up the blanket and books and said goodbye to their field. They walked hand in hand back to the Burrow, back to where their family and friends waited and everything would still be the same. Yet for Harry, everything had changed.

He hesitated on the steps leading into the kitchen, and Ginny waited, giving him time.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'm ready."

Finis


Endnote: The title is a line from a poem: Nothing is Ever Wasted, by Shilow. It's short, but I felt it fit Harry's feelings towards Ginny perfectly, and I wanted to include it somehow. If you google the title and poet, it'll come up in your search.