Fix You
A/N: Well, it's almost my school holidays, and I've update three times in term, so I think that's a pretty good effort. With holidays just a week away for me and because I just got a laptop, I should be able to write quickisher.
Chapter Seven - Insanity
January 7th, 2002
"So have you two finalised the tablecloth designs yet?" Mrs Weasley asked one surprisingly sunny Saturday morning. Ron stared at her bleakly.
"Tablecloth designs?" He asked, clearly not as enticed by this topic as his mother.
"I honestly don't think that Ron cares, Mum," Ginny said, sipping a mug of steaming coffee.
"I think he cares as much about the tablecloths as I do," Hermione's dad Frank said, looking at his future-son-in-law with pride. "Not very much indeed. They're tableclothes. I don't think people are going remember your wedding by certain tablecloths."
"Dad!" Hermione scolded him. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Mr and Mrs Weasley and Mr and Mrs Granger were in Harry, Ron and Hermione's flat, each gripping a cup of coffee, cramped around the small kitchen table which was laden with an organised mess of all things wedding. "With just over a month to go, this is important now!"
"I'm sure we could talk about something else dear," He told his daughter earnestly.
"Dad, I know what you want, and we're not talking about fireworks until Fred and George get here," Hermione told him.
"Oh." His face fell.
"They told me that they should be here at ten-thirtyish," Ginny said, glancing at the clock above the kitchen sink. "So any time soon."
"When did you see your brothers?" Mr Weasley asked her.
"Oh, George flooed me yesterday," Ginny explained. "Fred put too much Skele-Grow into one of their products and they wanted to know what the side effects could be."
"So after those two it's just Harry who isn't here then," Mrs Granger said. Ginny looked down into her cup. "Is he still in asleep?"
"He was out with Neville until late last night," Hermione said. "So he must be."
Ginny scoffed inwardly at this comment. He wasn't out the night before with Neville. Or Luna, or Seamus or anyone that he had been telling Ron and Hermione he was spending his time with. He had been pretty much stalking her for the past couple of weeks. Bars, clubs, parties, wherever Ginny had gone, she had soon seen a black haired bespectacled man turn up some time later. Whenever she turned around, he was staring at her with that disgusting disappointed look on his face every night without fail. She knew that when he saw her at those things it killed him. She didn't know why he kept coming back, but he always did, and he always saw her leave with someone who wasn't him.
Last night had been one of these. When she had left with Mike (or was it Mark,? She couldn't be certain), that moment when he was just looking at her as she left, Harry was feeling all the pain that she had. It gave her a detached sense of satisfaction to see him looking so hopeless, feeling like she could only imagine knowing she was doing everything in her power to make her suffer. She loved it, knowing that he was literally going insane with guilt, lust, jealously and regret. And whenever she read the paper and saw the speculation on what had been dubbed "Potter's Bender", she smiled, knowing that it was truer than even the author realised.
And a lot of this downfall was due to her. Ginny liked to take the blame for it. When Hermione had yet again questioned Ginny on Harry and why she just didn't forget, Ginny again smiled, Hermione confirming her right.
"He's going nuts," Hermione told her through the fire. "The papers are right for once I think. Ron and I found him passed out and soaking in his own vomit the other day. And Ginny, I honestly believe that a lot of that is your fault." Hermione had said this as if it was a reason for Ginny to take Harry back, as if that they would be better off together. "Good."
"You should go get Harry up," Ron told Hermione, taking a bite out of his croissant. "Iffs aarw uern."
"Ron!" Mrs Weasley yelled at him. The twins laughed loudly.
"I should?" Hermione asked him in disbelief and disgust. "He's your best friend."
"Yours too," Ron swallowed. "And I did it last time."
"You did not," Hermione told him. "You opened the door and then left me to actually wake him." Pop.
"Well, we're in for a fun day," Fred smirked as George also appartated in to the flat with a similar pop, causing Hedwig and Pig who were sitting on their perches in the corner of the room look up suspiciously. The Grangers both looked uncomfortable at this blatant burst of magic.
"Ron and Hermione bickering like there is no tomorrow," George smiled, shaking his head. "Reminds me of our fifth year."
"And sixth."
"Not seventh though," George went on. "That was more just Harry yelling at everyone. Ooh, and punching people."
"Well, that's today's dosage of Hogwarts nostalgia," Hermione said pointedly as her parents looked suddenly midly concerned. "Now you two can help with the wedding."
"Well, that's why we're here," George told her. "No-one sane wakes up this early on a Saturday."
"Except Oliver Wood," Fred told him.
"I said sane, dearest twin."
"What did I just say about nostalgia?" Hermione asked them, half-coldly. "How about we all just do something?"
"Let's talk about the fireworks now!" Mr Granger said excitedly.
"You're a pyromaniac, aren't you?" Ginny asked him.
"Don't encourage it," Mrs Granger said exasperatedly.
"Where's Princess Potter?" George asked the table at large, looking around suspiciously. "Shouldn't hero Harry the saviour, Chosen Best Man who Lived on a drunken rampage be here too?"
"It's Hermione's turn to wake him up," Ron said automatically. "She's getting him now." He grinned at his fiancée.
"You're helping," Hermione told him tiredly, tugging at the shoulder of his shirt to make him follow and pulling their wands, they advanced on the door to Harry's room cautiously. Mr Granger excitedly struck up a conversation with Fred and George.
Hermione pushed the door open, revealing a fully dressed Harry lying face down over t covers on his unmade bed, glasses askew. Ron stepped over the piles of clothes on his floor, edging past his upturned cauldron, thrown haphazardly aside towards a slightly snoring Harry. Hermione turned her nose up at the musty smell of stale alcohol wafting off Harry.
"Harry," Ron said loudly, poking him with his wand.
"At least he hasn't thrown up this time," Hermione sighed. "Wake up Harry," She said loudly as Ron poked him again. Harry shifted slightly, groaned then opened his eyes before squinting and holding his head in pain.
"What time do you call this?" Harry mumbled before sitting up.
"Time to get up," Hermione told him. "And you smell really bad. Scourgify." She brandished her wand and Harry shuddered as the spell hit him and the smell decreased slightly.
"C'mon mate," Ron said, stepping past Harry's things and back into the kitchen. Harry groaned again and rolled off his bed and straight onto the cold wooden floor. He got up gingerly, wondering how much he had had to drink the night before, and made his way into the kitchen.
"Oh," Harry said, looking around, squinting through his slightly out of place glasses, clothes crumpled. His eyes met Ginny's for a split second before she looked away. "I didn't know people were here." His eyes lingered on Ginny as he walked over, getting a glass of water from the sink.
How could she sit in his flat, drinking his coffee when he had seen her just last night running off with some random wizard, knowing full well she was breaking his heart with a vengant grin? He had told her that he loved her all those years ago, something he had never said to anyone else. He wasn't an overly open person, and it had taken something from him to be able to say that to her. He thought it had meant something when she had said it back. Apparently not. He broke his gaze, mildly disgusted.
"You look like crap, Harry," Fred told him.
"Thanks," Harry groaned, Fred's voice sounding three time its normal volume, making his ears ring as he flicked his wand at the coffee pot, causing it to boil instantly.
"Big night?" George asked him in quiet curiousity. Harry was suddenly very aware of the four adults in the room.
"No," he lied, sipping from his mug, making the throbbing in his head decrease slightly, then drawing up a chair between the twins and Hermione. "Just hung out with Neville until late." He met Ginny's eyes again briefly and they suddenly reached a silent agreement; they didn't talk about this. They didn't acknowledge that Ginny had seen Harry completely drunk and Harry wouldn't mention Ginny's hook-ups.
"That's not what the Prophet said," George smirked at him.
"C'mon George, I'm sure that I can chat with Neville and be a lunatic drunk at the same time," Harry joked mildly.
"Lunatic drunk?" Mr Weasley questioned him. "This morning you're a clinically depressed alcoholic whose unemployment is prompting violence, suicide and idolisation of a state of nothingness amongst children. Every heart in the nation is breaking as they watch your downward spiral." Harry looked dumbfounded. "Apparently." Mr Weasley
"They used to be annoying," Harry mused, his head aching a little less. "Now it's borderline ridiculous."
"It's borderline true," Hermione muttered under her breath.
"What was that?" Harry asked her, barely making out what she had said.
"Nothing, Harry. How about everyone gets back to the wedding now?" She asked smoothly.
"No, what?" Harry pushed questioningly. "I don't trust you."
"You shouldn't ever trust her," Fred said, wearing a smirk identical to the one that had also just popped up on his twins face. "Or Ron for that matter either. Those two have been dishing out your little secrets." Ron shot him a glare which his brother smiled and ignored.
"What secrets?" Harry asked automatically. "What are you on about?" He looked at Ron and Hermione suspiciously, and they both had their heads down avoiding his gaze as he felt himself blushing.
"Apparently you've got yourself a girlfriend, Potter," Fred smirked, half happy, half angry. Harry saw Ginny pale slightly from the corner of his eye. "Apparently you got yourself this girlfriend a while ago. What I want to know is not why you kept it a secret but how you managed to for so long."
"You have a girlfriend?" Mrs Weasley squeed. "Oh, Harry, what's her name? You have to dinner at the Burrow sometime. Will she be at the wedding?"
"Er," Harry stuttered, blushing in a way that would put Ron's ears to shame. He could see Ginny doing the exact opposite, paling so that her freckles stuck out more than usual. "I don't have a girlfriend."
"Well, that's the problem, isn't it," Ron told him as the twins snickered. Harry glared at them fiercely.
"Harry, definitely bring her to dinner at the Burrow," George told him. "I'm pretty sure that would go down well." Ginny looked like she was about to be sick, fortunately all attention was on Harry at the moment, the Weasley's all either smirking or looking at him questioningly, the Grangers looking mildly curious.
"No," Harry said forcefully. "Just leave me alone."
"Okay," Fred said happily.
"Up until the wedding at least," George smiled.
"These two," Fred said, nodding at the betrothed, "Ron and Hermione told us that we could tell anyone we liked about your lady friend as long as we waited until after their wedding."
"Oh, come on," Harry moaned angrily. "Just leave it for once. Please, just leave me alone." He folded his arms huffily, glaring at everyone who even so much as looked at him.
"We'll tell you first, Mum," George told his mother with a grin at his sister, who was staring at the blank wall above the stove.
"I've got a better idea," Harry said scathingly. "You could just leave me alone."
"Mate," Ron said, looking taken aback, "we're just teasing."
"Well, it's not funny," Harry said irately. He glanced at Ginny who was staring into her mug. "Just get over it and move on. It seems like the thing to do these days." Ginny looked up at him at this, but Harry avoided her eyes determinately.
"Fireworks?" Mr Granger asked tentatively. The table was silent for a moment before a forced discussion of fireworks began.
"Thanks for coming everyone," Ron said three hours later as everyone stretched tiredly.
"Yes, thankyou," Hermione said, hugging her parents after scuttling around the table and collecting all the wedding papers that they had organised that day, then going to her room.
"Worst three hours of my life," George exclaimed.
"Since History of Magic at least," Fred smirked as his parents apparated away. "We had to work really hard for our marks in that class. T is a rather good effort."
"I would call it a solid achievement," George told him. Only the twins, Ron, Ginny and Harry remained sitting around the table, Hermione was fetching her parent's coats from her room.
"I managed an E in that somehow," Ginny said. "Mainly because Hermione let me borrow her notes from the year before."
"That's the only reason me and Harry passed too," Ron admitted.
"You passed?" Harry asked him, sounding amused.
"You didn't?"
"I was a little preoccupied during that exam." Harry said softly.
"So I'll see you next week when I come and stay," Hermione said to her parents, the three of them emerging from her room.
"Next Thursday," Mr Granger said.
"We'll see you then," his wife said, kissing Hermione's cheek.
"Are you going home to stay for a bit?" Harry asked Hermione, mildly confused.
"Yes, you know that," Hermione sighed. "Up until the wedding. We told you weeks ago."
"But I thought you were going home," Harry said to Ron.
"I am."
"You're both going at the same time? You're leaving me by myself?" Harry asked, half amazed. "Full on, you two haven't left me alone for more than a couple of hours since... since I was sixteen, I think."
"Think you can take care of yourself?" Fred asked him. Harry rolled his eyes at the twin.
"I'll see you then," Hermione told her parents. "I'll stay at home up until the wedding."
"Wedding," Mr Granger said. "It's so hard to believe that you're so grown up. You used to be just our little girl with buck teeth and now you have some big important job, are getting married and live with two burly men." He smiled at her daughter proudly.
"Burly?" Fred asked humourlessly. "You're kidding right? Mr Scrawny and The Lank?"
"We'll see you all soon," Mrs Granger said as she and her husband left through the front door.
"Burly," George said to himself, shaking his head. "I have no idea where he got that from."
"I'm not scrawny," Harry said, sounding mildly self conscious. "It's seekers build."
"Scrawny," George said plainly.
"I'm taller than you," Harry told him.
"You were still the scrawniest little kid ever," Fred explained.
"That's not my fault," Harry puffed. Ginny rolled her eyes at this cave-man behaviour. Hermione, upon seeing this spoke up.
"I need your help to put this stuff away, Ron," Hermione told him forcefully, looking between Harry and Ginny pointedly.
"You got it out by- oh," He caught her gist slightly late, but got up and the two of them escaped into Hermione's room, casting an uncomfortable silence over the table.
"I think we're meant to leave now, Forge," Fred told his brother with a grin, "You know, to let these two work things out." He winked at Harry, who looked clearly unamused and shook his head.
"Can't you two just mind your own business?" Ginny cried exasperatedly, pulling her wand from her pocket. The twins looked at it with mild fear, knowing her reputation with the Bat-Bogey hex.
"Not while you're not being nice to Pot-Pot," Fred said earnestly, tugging out his own wand. "Protego!" He looked surprised when he realised that his shield charm was unneeded.
"From what Ron's told us, you've been treating young Harry here quite badly," George said in an authoritive tone. "You should really be nicer to the boy, he's a hero apparently." Harry scowled at this comment.
"Ron said that Harry only told you that you weren't allowed to go with them so you cracked the wobblies," Fred told her. "You should have forgiven the poor kid by now. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal Ginny, you're being a kid."
"Why does everyone keep telling me that I should forgive you when they know nothing about what went on!" Ginny exclaimed, turning on Harry, the twins looking mildly relieved that she wasn't taking her anger out on them. "It's completely unfair and you're making me look like the bad guy in all this when really, it's you!"
"I," Harry stuttered, holding his hands up in surrender to her. He hadn't sought a fight in the slightest this morning. "I'm trying to stay out of this!"
"If you wanted to stay out of this, you wouldn't have kissed me in the middle of the common room five years ago!" Ginny exclaimed loudly.
"If you said that to try and get us to hit Harrikins, we're not going to," George told her.
"If anything, we're impressed by his forwardness," Fred pointed out. "A lot better than Ron." Ginny scowled at her brothers.
"I... I want to stay out of this today," Harry said awkwardly.
"If you wanted to stay out of this there never would have been a this to begin with!" Harry gulped audibly as red sparks flew out of the end of Ginny's wand. The twins were looking shocked and excited simultaneously.
"Or maybe I should just tell everyone everything," Ginny ranted on at Harry. "Then all the stupid people like these two and Ron would just mind their own business and not expect me to have to do anything, that you should be crawling at my feet begging for forgiveness and then everyone would tell me not to because you're a prick!" She glared at him and stuck out her lip threateningly.
"Sit down, twins," Ginny said in a quieter voice, "it's a long story and you have to promise me that you won't punch him until I finish with it. Now, should we start at after the Quidditch final, or Dumbledore's funeral. Oh I know, how about Bill and Fleur's wedding." Her voice teased Harry with every syllable.
"Gin," Harry said warningly, looking at her cautiously.
"Don't 'Gin' me!" She yelled at him, noticing Ron and Hermione sticking their heads out the door of Hermione's room, watching the scene unfold. "You don't deserve to say anything to me."
"Just get over it!" Harry spat at her. "I'm sure it's not that hard."
"I thought I'd already done that," She told him harshly. "Your words, not mine."
"Obviously you haven't though, not if you still get so worked up about this," Harry told her. "I was trying to protect you; how many times do I have to explain that? I thought you understood."
"Oh, just advance the plot already," She snarled back at him, standing on the other side of the kitchen table. Hedwig and Pig, sensing a bad fight coming flew to refuge in Hermione's room with Crookshanks. "If you've said it one time, you've said it a thousand times. You were trying to protect me, and I didn't need protection. I understood what you were saying, I just didn't agree with it."
"So it meant nothing," Harry stated angrily "Everything else also obviously meant nothing; you know, what I said to you at your brothers wedding, everything I was saying to you at your brothers wedding."
"You were talking shit then, Harry, you know it," She scowled at him, looking murderous. "And if anything, it's more like it meant nothing to you."
"It wasn't shit to me," He said darkly, then paused for a second before lowering his voice, clearly trying to disclude Ron, Hermione and the twins from this conversation. "Well, some of it was. You were right back then, I was wrong. Happy? You were right about it." She met his eyes, he was staring at her openly, willing her to accept that. Her previous anger had disappeared. She knew exactly what he was talking about.
He looked at her funnily. "Don't give me ultimatums like that," he said quietly after a pause.
"You've already made your choice, you just don't realise it," She said, flipping her hair over her shoulder and edging towards him. "You need me and I'm coming with you."
He examined her for a moment, eyes glazing over for a second before a harsh look came over his face.
"I don't need you," He stated, and he stormed into the Burrow, slamming the door behind him.
She met his eyes over the kitchen table, and for a brief second, she was in shock; she felt like grinning like a love-sick fool again. He saw her face, and he smiled widely at her sudden lack of anger, and he began edging around the table towards her. Hermione let out a soft "oh" that clearly stated that she thought this was cute or romantic or something, an 'oh' that brought Ginny back to her senses. As Harry reached out to touch her shoulder, she jerked away, her previous anger only heightened.
"Okay, so you say you're sorry and that you didn't mean what you said, and like that's meant to make everything okay or something?" She spat viciously. "What, am I meant to be all like 'oh, I forgive you for just up and leaving me, lets get married and have a bunch of kids with scruffy red hair and green eyes that love Quidditch and we'll pretend this never happened'? C'mon. You just left me, and I felt like shit for so long!" She hiccupped, noticing tears forming in her eyes, but she couldn't stop herself, ignoring the presence of Hermione and her brothers in the room. "Even if I could forgive you for what you said all those years ago, I could never forget how you left me feeling like rubbish for so long. Just an owl would have been nice. But now..." She glared up at him, Fred and George still sitting at the table as they fought over it. "Things have changed since then, I've changed!"
"That you have," Harry said, sounding defeated. He sighed, looking down at his feet for a moment before looking up wearily. She met his eyes angrily; her tiny shoulders arched and jaw stuck out. "You've changed alright. And I don't think you've changed for the better from what I've been hearing about you these days." He didn't bother bringing up their brief almost meetings the past couple of nights, he didn't need to. She knew exactly what he was talking about judging by the fleeting look that crossed her face. The four onlookers looked between the two lovers in mild curiousity. They were both had heaving chests, hoarse voiced from yelling, reddened faces and they, unlike the others seemed to understand what they were going on about.
"Well, that's your fault then, isn't it?" She told him harshly, fists balled. "Maybe I've changed because you stuffed me up." She repeated the exact words that Dean Thomas had used when telling Harry about her new "issues". He seized up painfully at this.
There was a silence, the dripping of the tap painfully loud in the room, the noise of Muggle traffic on the street below a slight hum of engines. Harry stared plainly at Ginny, an unreadable look on his face. She squirmed slightly under his gaze, but did not step down.
"So," Fred began awkwardly, but Harry and Ginny both shot him death glares and he shut up.
"Maybe it is my fault. Maybe everything is my fault," Harry said quietly and Ron groaned audibly, which was then followed by what was clearly the sound of Hermione elbowing him in the ribs. "Or maybe it's yours too. Maybe if you weren't so ridiculously pig headed and stubborn-"
"Hark whose talking,"
"-but that's why I like you anyway," Harry went on as if she hadn't interrupted him. "All those annoying things are exactly why I like you. So I can't blame you for that. I want all them things back. So it can't be your fault. It's mine." He looked up at her earnestly, something which made her even angrier. He wasn't allowed to not be angry or upset. He had to be or she had failed. "What do I have to do to make this, to make everything up to you? Please. This is me begging you Ginny. Anything at all." She met his eyes as they pleaded with her, and she felt her heart momentarily seize up. She looked away from him, unable to bear anymore. It didn't matter if he had stopped being angry, she could still hurt him.
"There's nothing you can do." She told him quietly, shaking her head at him. "It's so far beyond that now. You're too late."
"I don't think so," he told her, his voice shaking with honesty. "You just told me that everything was my fault. If I've stuffed it up, I can fix it."
"You can't fix everything, Harry," she told him sadly after a pause. "No matter how much you want it to, some things just can't get better. You can't fix me." She looked up at him with sadness, her arms shaking involuntarily.
"But I can try," He told her. "Please let me try, Gin."
She shook her head at him, her face slightly screwed up, her voice catching, and that burning feeling at the back of her throat that she hadn't felt for so long was rising up. Grief for something she had thought she was over was bubbling up inside her. What she had left of her childhood innocence after Tom, that cute, puppy love and harrowing first crush had been used up on him. The surreal first kiss that lasted its own eternity and the playful hugs and hand-holding. One of those times that seemed to stretch on forever, but this time in a good way. Gone. It had only just hit her. Any thought of something so harmlessly beautiful as what they had had together at Hogwarts after pining for him for years was now gone beyond everything. And it was his fault in as many ways as it was hers.
"There's no point, Harry. It's too far gone."
They stood in silence, starting at each other for a moment before Ginny looked around, realising that her brothers and Hermione were in the room, she blinked a couple of times, seized her bag and apparated away.
Harry also looked around. The twins, who were still sitting at the kitchen table, looked up at Harry in shock, something he had never seen on their faces after all the time he had known them. Ron's mouth was hanging open and he shook his head as Hermione leant back against the door frame, her head hitting against the wood softly as she exhaled a deep breath. Harry looked at the four of them wearily and pushed his hands up his face in his frustration, unsettling his glasses as he ran his hands through his hair. He spared one more glance for Hermione and the Weasleys, before setting his glasses right and walking slowly to his room, closing the door firmly behind him.
"Well, remind me not to bait those two again," Fred said quietly to his brother.
"You started it?" Ron asked incredulously. "I could have told you how bad an idea that is. That's got to be their worst one yet."
"Good luck with the wedding and getting them to dance," George said softly, letting out a low whistle.
"At the moment, I'll just be happy with photographs," Hermione said sadly. They heard a loud cry of frustration from Harry's room and the sound of him punching a wall.
"I just didn't realise it went so far." George said in amazement.
A/N: This is probably my favourite chapter so far. Tell me what you think. Also, I'm in the process of revising the first two chapters because I was never happy with them. Please review! At the moment, this story has 3238 hits and 39 reviews. That around on in every 81 people reviewing. Make yourself that 81st person. And also go read my oneshot, called He Sat There Eating Toast.