So the problem is, I didn't think through the promise that I made to Ginny at all. The Hogwarts Express leaves Platform 9 and ¾ at exactly eleven in the morning on the first of September. This year that's a Tuesday, and rather than boarding the train myself, I'm expected to be in my Stealth and Tracking class at the Ministry. I'm positive that Ron has no intention of missing out on Hermione's last moments in London, and yet I can clearly picture the disapproval on her face if he were to bail on classes.

It's bound to be a sensitive subject, but I broach it with Ron anyway, over roast beef sandwiches and bottles of sparkling water in the Ministry cafe. For someone who's staring down the final hours and minutes until he has to separate from his girlfriend for weeks on end, he's in decent spirits, if a little bit quiet, though that could just be the lack of sleep.

"So what's your plan for tomorrow?"

He pauses, a crisp halfway to his mouth. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're seeing Hermione off, right?" At his nod, I add, "but we have class, so…"

"Yeah," he says, unperturbed. "I'm taking a personal day."

I suppose I was expecting talk of Apparating from a broom closet or the use of a contraband Time-Turner, because this solution is almost jarring in its logic and ease. "We get personal days?"

Laughing, Ron shakes his head and pops the crisp into his mouth. "Every Ministry employee gets them," he says, "only because we're in training we don't get a ton, I think it's only three. You know, 'cause they don't want us missing too much class. But once we're certified, we're meant to get the standard twenty-eight a year - that's what my dad's always got, anyway-" He laughs again. "Didn't you pay any attention at orientation?"

I throw my hands up in defeat. "You've officially spent too much time with Hermione."

"More like not enough," he says ruefully before regaining himself and picking up his sandwich to take a bite. "Aren't you coming with? I just assumed you would-"

"Yeah, well, I think Ginny wants me to," I confess, watching anxiously as this registers with him. "Actually, I know she does, because she asked me if I would."

"Take the day off, then," says Ron like it's so obvious - which, upon reflection, it very much is. "I really don't think Robards is going to say no to you."

"Right." I take a drink of water as I contemplate this, and then can't stop myself saying, "so really, we get personal days?"

"Well, yeah," Ron chuckles. "What did you think, that you'd just work every single day of your life without a break?"

"I never really thought about it."

And I hadn't. These little luxuries have never really seemed like an option for me. There hadn't ever been a break from the prophecy or the war or being the Chosen One, though sometimes with Ginny, it had felt that way. I just assumed that the rest of my life would go the way the first nearly-eighteen years went: snatching little bits of normalcy and joy when the realities of life allowed space for it. I never thought I'd get to the point where my life was truly mine to do with as I pleased.

"You had better do it now, if you're going to," Ron continues. "It's just a form, Robards has them in his office."

"Yeah, I will do, actually," I say, standing up. "You want the rest of my sandwich?"

Ron rolls his eyes in amusement. "Just go."

It's like I knew somewhere deep down that I needed to make that happen, because the second I've filed my request with Robards, the exhaustion of the past few days hits me like a ton of bricks. My eyes barely stay open in my afternoon classes, and upon arriving home, I recline in the drawing room to listen to post-match coverage of the World Cup and fall asleep almost immediately. At some point, I'm vaguely aware of Ron and Hermione trying to invite me out to dinner, but I'm afraid that I just roll over and tell Ron to piss off. When I do wake, it's to a darkened room, illuminated only by a shard of moonglow sneaking in through a gap in the curtains, with a horrible crick in my neck. I sit up, adjust my glasses so they sit level on my face, and squint at the face of my watch. It's nearly eleven, and my stomach is roiling angrily with hunger.

Making my way to the kitchen, I find only various condiments and leftover pizza in the cooling cupboard. Given that I can't even recall the last time we had pizza, I'm not willing to risk it - not when tomorrow is so important - and turn instead to the last few feeble slices of bread in the breadbin. I use my wand to toast them, dump a can of beans over them without bothering to heat them up, and sit myself down at the kitchen table to eat. I'm a bit regretting my decision to choose sleep over food.

In the center of the table sits the latest edition of the Daily Prophet. On the front page, clear as day, is my brightly beaming face, so I already know it's a photo of me and Ginny at the World Cup. But I don't care to read it. I'm not interested in whatever zippy headline the geniuses over at the Prophet have cooked up, or what sort of rumors they're spreading. If Ginny isn't fussed with it, I don't see why I should be. I have much more important things with which to concern myself.

A creak sounds from the staircase, and seconds later, Hermione pads into the kitchen wearing a bathrobe that absolutely dwarfs her.

"Hey," I greet her, my voice cracking from lack of use.

She pulls a glass from a cupboard and smiles at me. "Nice to see you up and about," she says as she fills her glass at the sink. "When did you wake up?"

"Just now." I take a bite of beans and toast. "Sorry I couldn't make it to dinner. Where'd you two go?"

"Oh, we went with my parents to this Japanese restaurant in Kensington, as sort of a goodbye dinner. You should have seen Ron, he was so funny, he'd never had sushi before in his life but he was trying to be quite casual about it - anyway." She shakes her head affectionately and takes a long drink from her glass. "Then we ended up at the Burrow for pudding - second pudding, really."

"You went to the Burrow?!" My heart starts pounding. "You should have tried harder to wake me up - or sent a Patronus or something-"

"Oh, it's no big deal," she says, reassuring. "Ginny understood you were sleeping. She seemed quite knackered herself."

"Still, if I'd known-"

"Well, I expect you were exhausted," she says, now taking on that Hermione-ish tone that lets me know she's about to pry into my personal business. "You had quite the night last night."

"All we did was talk," I reply, careful to keep my voice even.

"Hmm."

"Honestly."

Ignoring this, Hermione begins filling a second glass at the sink. "So did anything transpire out of this... talk?"

A sigh heaves its way out of my chest. "I thought you promised to stop meddling."

"I don't recall doing that," she says glibly, and I think a month ago, this would have annoyed the life out of me, but tonight I just laugh. There's no changing Hermione, and even if I could, I wouldn't want to. "Of course, you don't have to tell me, it's only if you want to-"

"There's nothing to tell," I say, even though last night was massive, groundbreaking, transformative. "She's leaving tomorrow, there's no point in… in getting my hopes up over anything."

"Just because she's leaving, that doesn't mean - Harry, look." Glass in hand, Hermione approaches the kitchen table. "I've honestly been doing my best to stay out of it, even though I really do just want to see you happy, and maybe I do get a bit carried away-"

"I know, I know-"

"But I'm not blind." She tightens the belt of her robe around her waist and drops into the seat opposite mine. "I saw the way you were together yesterday. That's not just friendship."

"All right, but…" Picking up my toast, I take a bite and chew as my thoughts form themselves into words in my brain. "What if she was just caught up in everything? With the match and being in a foreign country and everything - and anyway, I don't know why I'm even thinking about it, because she doesn't want a boyfriend."

Even as I speak the words, I question them. Ginny had been adamant, that day in the scullery, her eyes still shooting daggers at me, when she'd said so. I know enough about Ginny to know that she doesn't say anything she doesn't mean. But then… there was the way she huddled under that blanket at the match with me, when she could easily have left me out in the cold. Her face inches from mine in the darkness of the tent. That lingering hug in my bedroom, and her words when I mentioned writing to her at Hogwarts: the more the better.

I don't even want to tell Hermione about any of it, lest it lose its quiet intimacy, its promise, its hope. It feels sacred, and if it's all I'll ever have, then I want to keep it all to myself.

"I might have said the same thing about myself six months ago," Hermione says loftily. "Things change."

"Yes, yes, I know." I take another bite of toast. "You're a relationship expert now."

In a rare display of humility, Hermione just shrugs. "I don't know about that. But I know you, I know Ginny, and I know what I saw. I think maybe…" Her teeth dig into her lower lip. "Harry, please don't take this the wrong way."

"Oh, no," I say warily. "What?"

"I just think, sometimes…" She tilts her head, empathy written all over her face. She might be meddlesome and self-righteous and overbearing, but she only does it because she truly cares. "Sometimes it's like you think you don't deserve to be happy, so you just settle for whatever you've got."

She interlocks her fingers together in front of her mouth, eyes fixed anxiously on me. Given past history, she's probably expecting some sort of eruption, but though her words ring true, they don't sting the way she fears they might.

"It's not about deserving," I say after a moment's consideration. "I think I'm just not used to having a choice."

"Well, you do now, and I would just hate to see you choose something that's good enough when you could be happy. Really, properly happy."

My appetite for my slapdash breakfast-for-dinner vanishes as her meaning sinks in. All summer, I've needed prodding and coaxing to take the tiniest steps in any direction, and it's because I've never had so much choice in my life. My future was determined for me before I was even born, and to choose any other way quite literally meant the end of the world. Growing up with the Dursleys conditioned me to accept what I could get, because it was better than nothing at all. Once I made it to Hogwarts, defeating Voldemort took priority over everything else.

I could keep doing what I'm doing, and simply accept what I have now… but there is so much more out there.

"All right," I say after several minutes' silence. "Let's say you're right about all of this-"

"Which I am-"

"-she's still leaving tomorrow."

"Well," says Hermione, unfazed. "Better late than never, isn't it?"

With that, she rises from her chair and strides off towards the stairs, picking up that second glass of water as she goes.

•••

I haven't been to King's Cross in years. It's strange, today, walking in without my clunky old Hogwarts trunk or Hedwig in her cage, without the expectation of Quidditch and dormitories and celebratory feasts in the Great Hall. Though I used to spend my summers eagerly anticipating the moment I stepped onto the train and departed for the first place that ever really felt like home, I am not sorry that all of this is about to unfold without me. I can only imagine what it is costing Hermione and Ginny to leave behind the new lives they've each built this summer and return to a place that has shown them such horror and loss.

We've arrived early. The train hasn't even pulled into the station yet, and there's only a few other families here, which consist mainly of anxious-looking first years and parents. Ron sets Hermione's trunk down behind a brick pillar and we turn it into a makeshift bench, with Hermione perched on Ron's lap. In her usual way, she starts talking at a mile a minute, chattering about the professors and her classes and wondering how Hagrid has been doing all summer, then lamenting that we haven't visited him.

Ron just sits, his chin on her shoulder, and listens. He doesn't take his eyes off her, even as the platform grows more louder and crowded. He just watches her.

"And so I think for the prefect schedules," Hermione's saying, "I'm going to-" She notices, finally, that he hasn't stopped looking at her once. "What?"

"Nothing," says Ron, "nothing at all."

As he moves in to kiss her, I look up to see Ginny approaching, a rucksack slung over one shoulder, trunk clasped in the opposite hand. Mrs. Weasley follows behind just seconds later.

Hermione and I both jump up, and Ron rises too, though more reluctantly, as Mrs. Weasley bustles over and doles out hugs and cheek kisses. Playfully rolling her eyes, Ginny greets me with a smile and kneels down in front of Crookshanks' basket to scratch his ears through the wires.

The massive clock on the wall reads a quarter to eleven; I barely have fifteen minutes left with her. I learned years ago that the more desperately you cling to the seconds you've got, and the harder you wish for time to slow down, the more quickly it slips away. That's never been truer than it is right now. The second hand sweeping across the face of the clock is mocking me, a brutal reminder of every opportunity that I've squandered.

"I won't stay long," says Mrs. Weasley, smoothing down Ron's collar to his deep chagrin, "I know you all can take care of yourselves, but - oh, Ginny," she calls, "come here and let me say goodbye to you properly, it isn't every day that my only daughter leaves for her final year at Hogwarts."

Ginny straightens up from petting Crookshanks and lets her mother envelope her into what is surely a bone-cracking hug.

"Now, you be good this year," says Mrs. Weasley, worry plain on her careworn features. "This year isn't all about Quidditch, you know." She loosens her grip on Ginny, holding her at arm's length. "Your exams are much more important - Hermione, dear," she calls suddenly. "You'll make sure she studies, won't you?"

"I study perfectly well on my own," retorts Ginny, affronted, before Hermione can respond. "I don't need a babysitter-"

"Oh, I know, dear," says Mrs. Weasley. "But you've got so much potential, I just don't want you to be distracted like your brothers were."

"Cheers," mutters Ron dryly under his breath.

"I'll be fine, Mum," says Ginny pointedly. "We probably need to get on the train soon, it's going to fill up."

Unable to argue with this, Mrs. Weasley hugs us all again in turn, even though Ron and I aren't going anywhere and will probably turn up at the Burrow for dinner within the week, and then pats Ginny's cheek one last time before stepping through the barrier once again.

"'Be good'," Ginny repeats disbelievingly, setting her trunk down opposite Hermione's and seating herself upon it. Without a second's consideration, I squeeze onto the small space beside her. "Honestly. You'd think I was eight years old."

"You mean you're not?" asks Ron, laughing when Ginny swings out a foot to kick him. "Oh come on, she just doesn't want you throwing away your potential like your deadbeat older brothers have done."

Ginny laughs. "I'll do my best not to drop out."

From her place beside him, Hermione picks up Ron's wrist and frowns at the symbols skittering around the perimeter of his watch. "We really do need to get on the train soon," she says. "I've got to speak to all the prefects, it really won't do to be late to my own meeting."

"Yeah," says Ron, all mirth gone from his expression. "Yeah, all right."

They exchange looks and then slink off to a more secluded section of the platform, leaving Ginny and I in charge of her trunk… and very much alone.

There are seven minutes left.

"I really wanted to get here sooner," says Ginny, shifting about on the trunk so that her bent knee presses into my thigh. "But you know what it's like trying to get anyone in my house to go anywhere, and Mum made me check through my trunk about a thousand times to make sure I've got all my books and quills and, you know, enough pairs of socks and everything. Oh, God, and then I couldn't find Arnold-"

"You aren't leaving him at home, are you?"

"Oh no, he's in my trunk." Ginny pats the side of it. "I put a Bubble charm around him so he can breathe, I'll let him out once I'm on the train."

"Well-" I'm briefly interrupted by the sound of the train's engines as they rumble to life. "I'm glad I could come see you off, anyway. Though I have to say, it's really strange being here and not actually getting on the train."

"Are you sorry to be missing out?"

Even as I give a casual shrug, I can't tear my eyes away from her. "There's a few things I'll miss."

"Quidditch?" asks Ginny knowingly.

"Yeah, something like that."

Why can't I ever just say what I'm thinking? I have exactly six minutes left until that train pulls out of the station and I'm stuck in place, frozen like I have been all summer. The last thing I want is to go back to the way things were in July.

Ginny lets out a breath, her lips forming a nervous smile, and pulls her rucksack into her lap. Her fingers find the buckle holding it closed and fiddle with it, playing at unclasping it without ever actually doing so. "Erm, so I've been thinking-"

The words die on her tongue at the sound of a long, infuriated yowl: Hermione, having returned from wherever she and Ron had gone to snog, has just picked up Crookshanks' basket.

"Oh, hush, you're all right," she tells him impatiently before fixing her attention on me and Ginny. "We've really got to get on the train, we're running out of time."

Ginny nods. "You go ahead. I'll be there in a minute."

I rise and allow Hermione to wrap me up in a brief, one-armed hug, then wish her a good term before we separate and she turns back to Ron. She leans up to him for a couple last-minute kisses, and then he picks up the handle of her trunk and walks with her towards the train.

Behind me, Ginny has stood up as well, and I turn on my heel to face her. "Were you going to say something?"

"Oh - yeah-" She purses her lips. "I really need to get my things on the train, though."

"Right," I nod, trying not to let on about the plummeting sensation in my stomach. I've missed my moment, it's too late, and she's about to be taken hundreds of miles away from me. "Er, I can help you bring your things over."

She lets out a little laugh. "I've got it," she says, "but you can come with me if you want."

I'll do anything if it'll get me another few seconds with her, so I follow her over to the train, where she stops just outside one of the sliding doors. In the corner of my vision is Ron, leaning against a brick pillar with his arms folded over his chest. I don't see Hermione anywhere.

Five minutes left. Five whole minutes to tell her… well, all of it, really. That I love her, that I always have, that I never stopped. That the night we spent at the Quidditch World Cup was one of the best of my life. That I hope it isn't still ruined, that maybe we can still be something. That the future's wide open, and I want her in mine.

How am I meant to do that in the space of five minutes?

"So, I've been thinking," says Ginny, bringing her rucksack around in front of her and unbuckling it. "About those mirrors you gave me for my birthday."

I blink, taken aback. "Oh. Yeah, I really hope they work - I'm sure Hermione'll be able to fix it if they don't-"

"No, no, it's not that," she says with a shake of her head, digging a hand into her bag. "So listen, I've been trying to decide who to give the other one to. Who I'll want to talk to and who I'm going to miss the most, and, and I finally realized…" Her tongue darts out to lick her lips. "It's you."

As the words ring and echo around me, drowning out the whistle of the train and the clamor of the platform, she pulls a small, rectangular mirror out of her bag and presents it to me.

"I want to talk to you the most," she says firmly. "I'm going to miss you the most."

Wordlessly I take the mirror from her outstretched hand, and as our eyes lock, fire ignites in hers, and suddenly I know that I can't wait another second. If I let her go now, I'll always wonder what could have happened, and I don't want to live my life wondering anymore. I don't want to bide my time, waiting for something to happen, when everything I want and everything I need is right there in front of me. I understand her perfectly now, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that she and I want the same thing.

I duck my head and press my lips gently to hers, and her warmth floods through me. She rises up on tiptoe, bringing herself closer, her free hand grasping at my upper arm. She is the only thing I know: it's only when our mouths slowly detach that I recall that I'm in a bloody train station, of all places, the blast of the whistle sharp in my ears. From elsewhere on the platform comes Ron's raucous, disbelieving laughter.

Better late than never.

Ginny's face is flushed pink beneath the freckles dotting her cheeks. She's still close to me, so close I can feel her warm breath on my lips (I'm quite certain that I'm not breathing at all), and her lips curve into a wide, warm smile.

"I have to go," she breathes. "But, erm… we'll talk tonight?"

"Yes. Yes, definitely."

My words come out strong and emphatic and I know I sound overeager, but I want her to know how much I want this, and how much she means to me. I don't want to hold anything back anymore.

She leans in and touches her lips to mine once more, soft and light and sweet, and then drops down onto her heels. She picks up her trunk and walks slowly towards the train, looking back over her shoulder only once, to flash me a smile, and then she's stepping onto the train and disappearing inside. Its wheels start rolling in the next instant, and I watch it until it's gone.

It's only once she's out of sight that I notice Ron, still doubled over in amusement several feet away.

"Is something funny?" I ask him, though it's hard to sound annoyed when I'm smiling ear to ear.

He straightens up, ambles over, and thumps me on the back, still laughing to himself. "Just Hermione," he says with a shake of his head. "She's going to be gutted she missed it."

I hope you enjoyed coming along on Harry's journey with me! I really did pour so much of myself into this fic and so when people connect with it, I can't even put into words what it means. Thank you so much for reading!