25 December 2001
Teddy Lupin looked up at Harry with wide, pleading eyes. Harry should have known that he'd be ambushed right outside the loo. He'd seen this coming since he'd first arrived several hours ago in the early afternoon. "Please?" he begged, sticking out his bottom lip.
"No," Harry said firmly. "I'll bet your Mum and Dad would let you have one of your own, though," he added, when that lip began to quiver.
"It wouldn't be Puffy, though," Teddy pointed out, gazing longingly at the midnight blue pygmy puff Harry cradled in his hand. Harry winced at the name. He'd had Ginny's Christmas gift for two days now, and he still hadn't thought of a better name for her.
"But wouldn't you rather have a baby pygmy puff?" Harry said reasonably. "This one is--"
"NO BABIES!" Teddy shouted, planting his fists on his hips and looking suddenly very angry. The tips of his hair turned red.
Dora rounded the corner, took one look at the situation, and winced. "I should have told you," she said apologetically, looking at her son with a bemused expression on her face. "He isn't too pleased that we're having a you-know-what, and any mention of the female gender drives him wild."
"Oh, that's easy, then," Harry said, relieved. He bent down. "See, Teddy? This pygmy puff is a girl. You don't want a girl, right? Your mum just told me--"
"Puffy is a girl?" Teddy asked, revolted. He made vomiting noises. "You didn't tell me that," he accused, as though Harry had withheld vital information.
"Yep, she's definitely a girl," Harry said cheerfully, glad that he'd found a reason why Teddy would stop trying to guilt him into giving him Puffy. But Puffy was the only female pygmy puff (who also happened to be just a month older than Arnold) who could conceivably be Arnold's new girlfriend. "And girls are yucky."
"Thanks, Harry," Dora said dryly, rolling her eyes. "We were trying to convince him that girls aren't all bad -- hard enough to do with Victoire Weasley running around."
"Girls are stupid," Teddy said. "Especially at that time of the month," he added wisely, as though he'd heard this axiom many times (though Harry had a feeling that Teddy had no idea what 'that time of the month' really meant) and was just repeating it. His brow suddenly furrowed in confusion. "But Mummy... Daddy has that time of the month, too, but he isn't a girl!"
"Ted Remus Lupin!"
Harry swiftly retreated, trying to hide his laughter. Truth be told, he was thankful for Teddy's presence that day. He'd been a bit nervous showing up with a pygmy puff (how could he leave her all by herself for so many hours?), but though the adult Lupins had given him several odd looks, Teddy's excitement over Puffy had acted like a buffer.
He left Dora to her scolding of her small son and wandered back to the kitchen, still wondering if he'd made the right decision with Ginny's gift. What if Arnold was enough for her? What if she thought Puffy was just too much? Harry had already thought that he could volunteer to let Puffy stay with him... he and Ginny spent so much time together that it wouldn't make much of a difference.
But he couldn't help but think she'd like it. Embarrassingly enough, he'd had the idea of Puffy ever since she'd demonstrated the Filing Charm for him and he'd been forced to masturbate in his office. He couldn't help but remind himself of Arnold, and the way he was in heat; the idea to get Arnold a girlfriend had been born out of empathy more than anything else.
As he rounded the corner to the kitchen and heard lowered voices, Harry felt a trickle of unease. Remus was speaking to someone whose voice was tantalizingly familiar. It was a Weasley, he knew that much. He leaned up against the wall and, despite the rudeness in it, strained his ears to hear.
"Ron and Fred are still blowing up trees," George said in a toneless voice. Harry felt a little quiver of fear. "Hermione and Mum and the other girls are in the kitchen -- we don't know what they're doing. Dad... I just don't know. And Percy had this idea--"
"George," Remus said firmly. "What the hell happened?"
"I -- Ginny..." there was a level of grief and disgust and rage in George's voice frightened Harry as nothing else could. "Remus... Lucius Malfoy used Polyjuice when he -- when he raped her. The Polyjuice with -- with Dad's hair."
And it was as though the long-dead Voldemort had come roaring back to life and back into Harry's mind. Image after image -- the kind that had made death a surrender and not something to be avoided -- rose up into his head. And the one that had bothered him since that night was especially vivid. Ginny and a man whose hair appeared dark in the dimly-lit kitchen where she'd been chained like an animal. He was on top of her, her eyes were wide and staring and her mouth open in a scream. And Harry hadn't recognized -- hadn't wanted to -- that man. After everything was over, he'd asked her again and again if there had been anyone else besides the two Malfoys and Greyback, but she'd said no.
And there hadn't been, not really. Just Polyjuice. Harry's vision went red and he could barely hear the conversation over the roaring in his ears. I should have known. I should have known. He'd seen it, and now that he remembered, he'd seen a cauldron full of the potion sitting on the counter.
"--have an idea, Percy thought of it, of all people," George said, voice flat and dull again. "And thought you might want to help..."
"Of course," Remus said. "Of course. Shit, George. I can't -- where is she now?"
"She went back to school," George replied.
Ginny is at school. Harry focused on those words. Ginny is at school and all alone. And without a word of goodbye or even a pang of regret, Harry turned on the spot and Disapparated. He hit the ground running, and pulled open the gate. eyes already up, searching the sky. The clouds were grey and threatening to spill over with a storm, and, everywhere Harry looked, they were empty.
But he couldn't imagine her being anywhere else, and he found himself in the center of the Quidditch pitch, staring up, looking for her crimson hair. George's words and the images Voldemort had planted into his head so long ago haunted him and followed him. He didn't even want to imagine the circumstances in which she had told, because it must have exploded out of her, she usually kept everything so tightly bottled up.
Damn it, Ginny, where are you?
He thundered up the stairs, all seven flights, and burst into the Gryffindor common room and up to the girls' dormitory. Glad that he was a professor and therefore allowed to do this, he pounded on the door. "Ginny!" he shouted. His pygmy puff burrowed even further into the pocket of his cloak. "Ginny, let me in!"
Five minutes passed before he gave up -- Ginny wouldn't just leave him standing out there -- and tried to figure out where she'd go next. The Room of Requirement? He'd never run there faster in all the time he'd been a student. He left the Fat Lady yelling at him to treat her with some respect. Ignoring her, he flew toward his destination, keeping his eyes wide open, because every time he closed them, he saw everything.
Of course that's what happened, he thought as he paced in front of the door to the Room of Requirement. He'd seen it, he just hadn't wanted to understand. No wonder she'd never mentioned her dad. No wonder.
But no matter how much he kicked at that section of the wall or yelled at it or asked it to show him where Ginny was -- because he certainly required it -- it remained firmly closed to him. She must not be here, he told himself. But he'd run out of options, hadn't he? He strode over to the window, gazing out at the grounds and the sky. Still no Ginny.
I'm going to have to get the Marauder's Map from Hermione. The thought struck him and he was running again toward his office and the floo. He ignored the fact that showing up at the Burrow on Christmas Day after Ginny had told everyone a truth of what had happened to her would be awkward. He ignored the fact that he hadn't seen or talked to Hermione in years. Instead, he changed course and sprinted down to his private quarters where he could use the floo. He turned the corner--
"Ginny!"
Her head jerked up at his cry.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning up against the door to his private rooms; Arnold sat very still on her leg. Harry felt such relief that his knees were weak and his heart skipped a beat. She stood up as soon as he approached and, almost without thought, he wrapped his arms around her. She can push me away if she absolutely must...
HPHPHPHPHPHP
25 December 2001
The moment Harry folded her into his arms, Ginny felt warm again in what might have been forever, though she knew it was closer to four years. Her hands came up and pressed against his back, and for a moment, she let herself revel in the sensation of his hug. The first one she'd had in years; ever since she'd seen who she thought had been her father--
But she pulled away from the thought just as she pulled away from Harry. It had taken her several hours on her broom to lock away the rage that had controlled her actions and her words, and she was very afraid that if she held on to him like she wanted to, it would cause her to break her grasp again. Not in rage, but... the tears were just below the surface, swirling around with the anger and helplessness that would just not go away no matter how much she ignored them.
Still. She was already dangerously close to tears. "Hi," she said in a voice that was overly bright even to her own ears. "I decided -- I wanted -- I came back," she told him unnecessarily. Her throat kept threatening to close, but she forced the words out. Looking him in the eye was beyond her, though; even the thought made the emotions grow closer. Earlier, she'd felt that she'd been pulled out into deep, churning waters of the ocean, and she'd just managed to fight the undertow and return to shore. "I wanted to give you your gift," she lied. And because she wanted to have something to do with her hands, she pulled the Marauder's Map from the pocket of her sweatshirt.
Harry took it with hands that shook and didn't say anything for a long moment. "I'm -- this is wonderful, Ginny," he said haltingly. "I -- do you..." he gestured toward his door. "Do you want some tea?"
It hit her then that he must know, somehow, what had happened. Or at least that something had happened. When he'd come sprinting up, she'd been too relieved to notice this was not normal behavior. And when he'd hugged her, it had been too wonderful and terrible to really notice.
She nodded, and stepped around him when he opened the door for her. The silence seemed especially loud. Harry made no move to actually make tea, and she vaguely wondered if he even had a teapot. He didn't seem the type to have even the most basic of appliances.
Then he took away the question. "Kreacher," he said quietly. And with a soft pop, the house-elf appeared. He opened his mouth to speak, ears quivering, but Harry cut him off. "Make tea for both of us, please."
Ginny could feel his questions pressing down on her. And she could tell by the way his movements were jerky and the way he kept attempting to say something but kept stopping himself.
"Did Arnold miss me?" he asked in a raspy voice.
Ginny seized on this. "Very much," she told him. For a moment, she was so grateful that he wasn't going to push her that she might have been hit with the Jelly-Legs Hex. But in a strange way this made the tide of emotion come in further, until she could feel it lapping at her feet.
"I got you -- I have your present," he told her.
She jerked her head in a nod. "That was... I'm sure I'll -- I'm going to like it," she said, forcing to take deep, even breaths through her nose. Don't lose it, Ginny, she told herself. Not now. You can't. A thought struck her, and she focused all her energy on the guilt it brought. "Harry, I never asked Hermione about the author of the book! I meant to, I really did"--I was too busy asking her how to tell if you fancy me or not--"and I'm really sorry and--"
"I don't care," he said almost violently. "Don't -- just don't apologize."
Tears stung the backs of her eyes, but she forced them away. They were still standing in the center of the room, and she was almost too afraid to move, as though if she did it would be impossible to hold on to herself. "So," she said. "What is this gift you keep promising?"
"Well," he said. "I'm not sure if you'll like it."
Ginny doubted that.
And then he reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked to be a ball of midnight blue fluff. A pygmy puff. Ginny stared at it, confused. "It's a girl," he said quickly. "She's only a month older than Arnold, and I think -- well, if he goes into heat again... he won't be quite so lonely as he was last time."
All she could do was stare. Then, for some inexplicable reason, the image of her father's face was superimposed over the small pygmy puff. I did that to him. It was just after she'd flung the truth at him like a weapon and the horror and repulsion she'd lived with for years had been reflected back to her. She could feel the tears rising up her body, and she was powerless to stop it. Inexplicably, Harry's kind gesture had exactly the same affect as her father being so completely wrong, and the measure of control she had was sliding through her fingertips.
But she had to give him some warning. "I'm not -- I'm not all right." She lifted her eyes to meet his, and almost involuntarily raised her arms a little as though asking for a hug. Which she was. "I think -- I just..." but she couldn't do it. I think I killed my father today. How could she say that to him? The overwhelming hurt on his face... and the tears hit.
"I know," he said. And for the second time in ten minutes, he held onto her. It started small. Only a few tears leaked out. His hand stroked her back and he rocked back and forth just a tiny bit--
And then it was just too much. Deep, wracking sobs shook her entire body; they were so strong that she might have fallen over had he not been there to keep her upright. "It's just not fair," she heard herself say.
"It isn't, it really, really isn't fair," he murmured.
"I could've..." she began, but it took a while -- possibly minutes -- before she could talk again. "If they'd just not -- did you know?"
He didn't have to ask her to clarify. "I did, but I didn't," his hands convulsed, fisting her sweatshirt for a moment before he let go. "Ginny... I didn't want to believe it. I really didn't. But," he swallowed hard, "I think I must've known because when I was with -- when I left you with the Healer at the Burrow, I just couldn't... the idea of seeing your dad..."
Harry didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't really need to. And gradually, the tears began to subside and while her entire body trembled, her limbs began to relax. Tension drained out of her until she was limp, and leaning on Harry even more, and when he led her over to the sofa, she didn't protest. And when he thrust a cup of tea in her hands, she wrapped her fingers around it and sipped it gratefully. It was still warm.
Her eyes wandered around the room, and then widened in surprise. Is Arnold... dancing? She'd never seen him jump in a circle and shuffle around a bit with such precision and repetition. As she watched, though, he broke his pattern and ran full tilt to the opposite side of the desk (where the other pygmy puff was), but she swiped at him and turn her back on him, fully puffed. And he meekly went back to his corner and began to do his weird little dance again. And then the cycle was repeated. Despite the girl puff's seeming annoyance and indifference, however, she kept turning back around and watching him avidly.
Ginny was almost shocked to find herself smiling. Her entire face was swollen and still, the sight of an overly enthusiastic Arnold being rebuffed again and again brought a smile to her lips. "What's her name?" she asked.
"Well, I've been calling her Puffy--"
"Puffy?" Ginny asked, half horrified, half amused.
"I was waiting for you to name her," he said defensively, though Ginny could hear the smile in his voice.
"I'll think on it," she said vaguely. The distraction the pygmy puffs had offered had not lasted very long. And this time when she relived that last, horrible few moments of the confrontation with her father, she didn't feel rage or grief, but an overwhelming hopelessness. "You were right, you know," she said in a low voice.
"Ginny, I--"
"He really did destroy everything," she added. Harry had yelled that at Voldemort just before their one spell duel. "It just... it took him three years, six months, and twelve days to do it." She twisted to look at him; his eyes were wide and fixed on her face. "I meant to never, ever tell them. I -- I've just lost them. How can I possibly face them again?"
HPHPHPHPHPHPHP
25 December 2001
Harry cringed at her words, thankful that she wasn't looking at him. The memory of having those words practically ripped from his chest was so vivid and clear that maybe if he closed his eyes, he would be brought back, as though the last three and a half years had never happened. As if he hadn't run away from everyone who loved him and whom he loved. As if he hadn't come to Hogwarts and Ginny hadn't shown him that the words weren't true at all.
"I was wrong," he said. She looked over at him again. "Look at you."
She laughed bitterly, but it was still a laugh. Fifteen. "I don't know what you see when you look at me, Harry, but I think you--"
"You're at Hogwarts," he cut her off, voice louder than he'd expected. "You play Quidditch like you were born to it and loads of people like you. And you befriended me even though you were -- well, it was pretty obvious that you didn't want to see me." He had to make her see it from his perspective. "You haven't -- you didn't let him destroy you." Thank God.
Harry watched her take a sip of her tea, and it struck him that of the two of them, she was stronger. Before he'd seen her again, he had expected that she would be exactly as she'd been at Malfoy Manor. What she'd suffered had been so deep and terrible that Harry had healed only a little, and he hadn't even lived through what she had. He'd just been a belated witness. But she'd picked herself up.
Ginny didn't say anything for long minutes, and the room gradually darkened. Harry lazily reached for the Elder Wand and lit a fire in the hearth.
"I think..." she said quietly. "If Lucius hadn't -- if there hadn't been a masquerade..."
Harry sensed that he shouldn't say anything, so he kept his mouth shut, and haltingly and with many interruptions, she talked. Ginny loved Mr. Weasley very much, but she just couldn't forget, and the not wanting to talk to him, look at him, or think about him was an added pain.
"I remember, you know," she said, glancing at him out the corner of her eye. "The way it used to be. And sometimes that's a lot worse than remembering Malfoy Manor."
"Yeah," Harry nodded, thinking of how the happy memories could be like a punch to the gut.
"I just -- I don't..." but her words appeared to dry up and she lapsed into a frustrated silence. Harry waited for her to get going again, and, sometime later, she did. And it was anger that dripped from her voice, not grief. "I wish he'd -- why couldn't he have just known? And then he made me say it in front of everyone... he should have just -- and that's really unfair of me."
Harry understood exactly where she was coming from. Every time anyone asked what had happened, he wanted them to just know without him having to tell them. Because then they'd leave well enough alone. It wasn't realistic of him, and it wasn't fair, but he couldn't help it. "I think that's why it's so easy to be around you," he mused, mouth against her hair. Somehow -- he didn't know when it had happened -- he was holding onto her again, and they were so close that she was practically on his lap. "I don't have to tell you anything because you already know."
She nodded against his chest, and he stroked her back. His eyelids were heavy, and he peered blearily at the clock. It was only nine, but he was rapidly becoming too tired to stay awake. Even Arnold had given up his wooing of Puffy. Both pygmy puffs were snoring on different piles of parchment. Though even as he watched, Harry noticed Arnold shifting closer to her.
"Do you still think you'll stay away from your family?" he asked quietly. She stiffened.
"I can't imagine actually going to see them again," she admitted. "Any of them. If you'd been there... if you'd seen them. I hurt all of them quite badly."
"Because you shared some of your pain with them," he told her. And Harry knew that he was the worst sort of hypocrite. He'd left the Weasleys, hadn't he? If she wanted to leave, if being around them was too much for her, then she had the right to make that decision herself. But the idea of her living the way he did in an empty house, without the comfort of having other people around, with no one to talk to, made his chest hurt.
"I never meant to," she said. "I didn't want them to know."
It was strange to see some of his own thoughts reflected exactly back at him, and yet in her, he could see the flaws. What had been done to her wasn't something to hide away and let fester. She didn't have anything to be ashamed of, like he did. He couldn't help but be glad that she had shared her burden with others, because what if it lightened the weight on her shoulders? He ached for the Weasleys, but if he knew them at all, he knew they would want to take away some of her pain. And none of them flinched from the truth.
While Harry wracked his brain trying to figure out a way to tell her this without sounding intrusive, she fell asleep. He could tell by the way her entire body relaxed, still curled around his, and her breathing deepened. Her hair slid into her face, and he hooked it behind her ear again, to keep it out of her mouth.
And then the events of the day hit him, and he pressed his palm to his forehead. He'd gone from having a homey Christmas with the Lupins, to frantic about Ginny -- he could admit now that he'd thought he'd lost her -- and searching desperately for her, to holding her as she finally let it out, and then now, this moment, which was more intimate than anything Harry had ever experienced. He was exhausted but in some inexplicable way, he felt stronger than he had in years.
The firelight flickered in her hair, and it struck him again that even though her face was swollen and blotchy and her hair was tangled because she'd been flying and then he'd had his hands in it, she was still the loveliest witch he knew.
It happened so quickly that Harry could barely process it, but it was more like sinking into a warm bath than being hit by a lightning bolt. As he looked at her, she gave a little snore and he felt her warm breath through his shirt, and he felt such a wave of tenderness and admiration, the desire to protect and just plain desire, that he couldn't deny his feelings for her any longer. I'm in love with her, he thought dizzily.
His hand tightened on her shoulder and she murmured a little, and tucked herself closer.
He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling, completely shocked and yet completely not all at once. And he couldn't even doubt that it was true. Ginny -- blushing, stammering, laughing Ginny -- had come blazing back into his life with a vengeance, and Harry was both elated and terrified by the fact that there was no coming back from this.
Supposing that she ever felt the same (a big if, in Harry's opinion) the complications were many. The press would find out, and they'd have a field day. They would be questioned and scrutinized. And the Weasleys. If she fell in love with him too, and if she did what he hoped and maintained a relationship with her family, it would be impossible for him to stay away.
But when he closed his eyes and tried to envision that scene, it didn't strike him with dread. He could see himself with his arm around her and Ron and Hermione and all the others standing near, and though he feared the steps it might take to get to that point, he knew that he would see this scene were he ever to look upon the Mirror of Erised again.
HPHPHPHPHPHPHP
26 December 2001 - 30 December 2001
The raw, horrible feeling slowly dissipated over the next few days. Ginny had woken up the day after Christmas still laying on the couch, limbs tangled pleasantly with Harry's, and found that some of the awful pressure on her chest had eased overnight. It helped that the only other person she saw besides him had been Professor McGonagall, who had caught her heading up for a wash and fresh clothes. And she hadn't mentioned Christmas (though Ginny knew it was too much to hope for that she didn't know -- she was a member of the Order, after all, and her parents would have checked to make sure she was all right), just offered greetings and moved on.
Ginny had wondered if the professor knew she'd spent the night in Harry's private rooms. But McGonagall hadn't said anything, and Ginny hadn't wanted to tell her if she didn't already know. It had been completely innocent, of course, but still.
Not to mention that Ginny still wasn't sure if Harry's feelings for her went beyond friendship or not. The more the time passed between her confrontation with her father, the more she thought about Hermione's advice. Just last night when Ginny had packed up Arnold (after allowing the newly renamed Calliope to stay with Harry), she'd stayed bent over for just a heartbeat longer than necessary.
He'd looked, of course. But Ginny knew very well that attraction didn't always mean fancying. Unfortunately, testing his emotions was a trickier business, and Hermione hadn't offered her much advice in that respect at all. He got you Calliope,she told herself that morning as she prepared to go meet him. She was alone in the dormitory except for Arnold.
He likes spending time with you. He didn't want you to leave last night.
But Ginny didn't know if he just felt sorry for her or not.
Three years, six months, and sixteen days after Malfoy Manor, Harry suggested that she look into the Mirror of Erised.
It took her a moment to remember what that actually was. Embarrassingly enough, she'd been a bit distracted by his mouth, and remembering that he'd been kissing her thoroughly in her dreams again. "The Mirror of Erised?"
"Yeah," he said, nodding. He was avoiding making eye contact with her, and Ginny suspected that he thought it was important. And it might have something to do with her family. Yesterday, he'd casually mentioned that he'd been really lonely before coming back to Hogwarts, and that self-imposed exile was pretty awful. While he obviously had intended this to be a subtle coax, Ginny saw right through it.
"But what's the point?" she asked. "It shows you your heart's desire, doesn't it? Not the future?" Lifting her chin, she met his eyes. He was quite close, almost absentmindedly letting Arnold use his hand and arm as a climbing wall.
"Well, I dunno," he said, shrugging, and glancing down at Arnold. "Maybe it might help. You know. To know what it is your heart desires most. Sometimes it can be kind of like a goal."
"What do you see?" she asked, almost as a challenge.
He ruffled his hair and scratched the back of his neck. Ginny could practically see his indecision march across his face as he considered whether to tell her or not. You shouldn't have asked him such a personal question, she told herself. Her face flushed. "Look, I'm--"
"I haven't actually seen it," he admitted. "Not for ten years, anyway. But I'm guessing it would be you and me together with the rest of your family. And probably Remus and Dora."
Her heart twisted at the image, though her mind lingered on his words. You and me together. Did he mean together as a couple? Or just standing next to her? But she was almost as entranced with the vision of him with her family again, whether she was there or not.
"All right," she heard herself say. "I'll do it."
It took him another day to arrange matters, but three years, six months, and seventeen days after Malfoy Manor, Harry led her up to the Room of Requirement. Arnold was clenched in her damp fist, and she almost wanted to turn back. She wasn't sure if she wanted to be confronted with her heart's desire, because what if it was completely unattainable? What if it showed her somehow not being captured and going to Malfoy Manor? Then it wouldn't give her any hope, ephemeral or tangible.
"I'll stay out here," Harry announced, once the door had appeared.
Ginny was grateful that he offered her this privacy. She wasn't sure if he would even be able to see what she saw. But since she was in love with him, she was pretty certain she'd see him in the mirror, and it was just an added complication. "Do you mind... can I take Calliope, too?" she asked. Harry immediately reached into his pocket and brought out the snoozing pygmy puff.
Arnold was overjoyed, Calliope not so much.
At first she worried that the room had not manifested the mirror after all. It was almost completely dark, until little lights began to form a path and as she traveled further into the room (Do I require a strange quest atmosphere, too? Ginny thought dryly), it grew brighter and brighter until a large, old mirror stood directly in her path.
For a few moments, all she could see was herself, pale and anxious. Then the background filled in and she sat down heavily on a chair that magically appeared. "Ohhh," she moaned softly.
The worst (and best) part of what she saw was the fact that, once upon a time, it would have been entirely normal. It was right outside the Burrow (Ginny recognized the chicken coop) and everyone she loved was there. Harry had his arm around her, and as she watched, he leaned down to steal a kiss. Once he straightened up, he turned back to Ron, who had the sly look on his face that told Ginny that her brother was teasing Harry mercilessly.
Other family members and friends milled about (Teddy and Victoire ran across the front of the mirror, almost too quickly for her to track). And when her dad tapped the mirror-Ginny on the shoulder, the real Ginny flinched. Her breathing deepened as she watched herself smile and then laugh, and then he tugged on her hair, just like he used to.
Arnold and Calliope frolicked together in the grass. Her brothers and their wives and girlfriends talked and laughed and teased. And ate. Piles and piles of her mother's cooking appeared to complete the image of perfection.
I want this, Ginny realized. Her hand involuntarily traced the image, as though if she tried hard enough, she could enter this scene. It looked so bright and happy and warm... I want this. She looked at Harry again. He was staring at her reflection as though drinking her in.
Ginny didn't know how long she stayed, but by the time she left the Room of Requirement (after retrieving Calliope, who had apparently required a place to hide from Arnold), it was dark. Harry pushed himself off the wall, a dozen questions in his eyes. But Ginny wasn't ready for that yet.
Can I really have that?
It seemed like it might be too good to be true. But... Ginny had watched the mirror-Harry quite a lot, and she recognized some of the looks he had given her. She'd seen them in real life. And in some inexplicable way, it seemed to her that if Harry could actually have feelings for her, and that one thing was possible, the rest might be attainable as well. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest.
"Do you really think it could be a goal?" Ginny asked him just outside the door to his private rooms. He unlocked it and they both went in.
"As long as it's physically possible, I don't see why not," Harry said quietly. He shut the door and sat down on the arm of the sofa, watching her carefully.
Ginny thought about this. She hadn't been given the impression that the scene took place in a world where Malfoy Manor hadn't happened. Too much was alike. And that was probably what had made it even more poignant, actually, to be given a vision of near perfection that came after the darkness.
But lovely as all of it was, she focused on what she had seen of Harry. And suddenly she didn't want to test him in the subtle ways Hermione had told her, because even though he looked at her bum and held open doors for her and tried to stay in her company as much as possible, she wanted fact not speculation.
Almost unconsciously, she licked her lips, and thought she might have seen Harry's gaze flicker toward them. "Do you -- let's say if it was physically possible," she said. She was thinking more of the way he had kissed her in the reflection than of her family. "Do you think I could do it?"
"I think you can do anything if you want it badly enough," he answered immediately. "Look at what you've already done."
The room was suddenly quite warm, and her heart pounded. You're in Gryffindor, she reminded herself, taking deep, even breaths. Ginny was reminded strongly of the time when she'd taught him the Filing Charm. Except that maybe she was about to do something about it. Maybe. He was only two feet away, but his lips seemed quite distant. Her stomach flipped over.
"Can -- do you want to tell me what you saw?" he asked.
She jerked her shoulder helplessly. "This," she said, face suddenly so hot it felt like it was on fire. But suddenly she just couldn't stand it anymore. "I'm sorry." He can push me away if he absolutely must. And then she closed the distance between them, put her hands on his shoulders (she was very glad he was sitting down), and pressed her lips to his.
--
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Author's Note:
Ooooh. I wonder what's going to happen next! Thanks, all, for the reviews for the last chapter. As much as writing that confrontation with Arthur was difficult, this one was a joy. Especially that last paragraph. Go, Ginny!