_The Day You Lost Me_
CHAPTER 5
"Thank You."
"Harry," Ginny spoke up, unfolding her arms.
She looked at her husband, who was sitting on the chair directly across from her, hunched over. His eyes were focused on the ground, and his hands were clasped together. He looked so still, and she couldn't even put into words how much it scared her. It was like there was nothing left for him to do. But it wasn't as though she was particularly talkative at the moment. She was sitting on the bed, staring at the sheets, trying to find an answer in them. But it was too quiet, and there was nothing else heard in the room except the sound of two people breathing.
"Harry," she tried again.
The only sign of recognition she got was his breath hitching as he heard her voice. Harry was no longer in the mood for outbreaks, which meant that he had to keep his mouth shut. He was tired of the same cycle they seemed to be following. They'd break each other down, then pick each other up, then break each other down, then pick each other up. He didn't want to break down anymore, and he was tired of being picked up. His breathing grew strained as he leaned forwards towards the ground, his head bent down.
It was her third attempt that finally got to him.
"Harry."
He leaned backwards, and inhaled deeply. It came down to this moment, and he was tired of the misery they both felt. He savored the feeling of his lungs clearing out as he exhaled deeply and stood, feeling as though the act had left him with a new found strength. He walked towards the door; didn't know exactly what he was doing, but he knew who he was going to. The house was like a Cold War. Silence…and then after things got too mellow something would explode.
There were other people living here too.
There was Teddy.
Harry couldn't take it. There was just so much…it was just all gone. There was a big empty space where something else should have been, and that empty space was eating him up. He couldn't look at Ginny. He couldn't even understand what was going on between them. What had happened to the woman he'd married? What had happened to them? How could it have come to this…?
"Harry," Ginny cried, alarmed as she scrambled off the bed to follow him.
She watched him as he entered, and bent over Teddy who was sleeping. She knew what he was going to do. She knew it, and couldn't even bring herself to stop him. She was done yelling at him, and having him ignore it. She wanted him to just let it all out already, and blow up, so that things could maybe calm down again. But Harry wasn't like that. He wouldn't flare. He wouldn't burn for her just so she could stop. But she could think, and she could scream. And right now her mind was screaming: HARRY POTTER, DON'T YOU DARE. DON'T YOU DARE. PLEASE.
On the outside, she was just frowning. On the outside, her eyes were just tired, glazed with all they'd been through as she stared at the floor, doing nothing. Her brow furrowed, and she pulled her arms around her, her heart thumping in her chest. Harry lifted the boy, trying his best not to wake him.
He was no longer hesitating.
But she just couldn't…just couldn't bring herself to move.
Teddy stirred slightly, making soft noises. Harry soothed him, cradling his godson in his arms as he continued to wake despite Harry's best wishes. The boy looked over his shoulder at Ginny, who was stepping from side to side, gripping at the sleeves of her sweater, unable to follow them.
Harry practically hopped down the stairs, his momentum picking up as he opened the door. He was getting there. He was going to do something that would be better for the both of them. He was almost -
"Please don't leave."
She'd finally found her voice. It was trembling, but it was there. A quiet plea.
Harry looked at her, then around at the house he no longer knew. His eyes fell to his godson, his only living relative. Even if it was just by his obligation, Teddy was family. He looked back at the woman who he had thought he loved. Who he had once seen a future with. But there was no future; not even a present. Teddy was tugging onto Harry's collar as he drifted quietly back to sleep, his tiredness catching up on him. Harry looked down at the boy, a perfect mixture of Tonks and Remus, and he thought about his promise to them and his promise to himself – Everything. Anything. For Teddy.
He turned around, his back to his old life, his hand on the doorknob.
He turned it, and felt the cool air greet his skin as he stepped outside.
There was a soft click as he shut the door…and then they were gone.
"You didn't tell me she was back."
Harry had excused himself from the table almost as soon as possible, and shuffled out of sight into one of the spare rooms. He'd been enjoying his moment of silence…not that the dinner hadn't been silent. The news that Hermione was back didn't exactly earn the same reaction from the others as it had from Harry, Ron and Luna. And no matter how many times he twirled the information around, it still felt wrong to him. Everything was going wrong.
"You haven't spoken at all this dinner," Ginny added when he said nothing in reply. Typical Harry. But she wasn't accusing him, for which he was thankful. She sounded concerned instead, but stood cautious. It wasn't that she didn't care anymore, it was that caring was no longer an option lest you just want to be disappointed.
Harry looked at her, then at the ground. Sounds of laughter could be heard from the living room, where the rest of the family was huddled up, clutching cups of coffee and talking about their day. Somewhere along the line he heard Victoire give a squeal of delight, followed by cheer and cooing.
His eyes met Ginny's, and she followed through, not letting up. She wasn't going to back down. She wasn't going to let him shut her out.
"Will you please talk to me?" she asked suddenly, pulling on whatever strands were left between them. "Please?"
He walked towards her, his eyes falling on her for a moment, before he turned towards the door. Ginny sighed, closing her eyes in defeat.
Harry, please don't leave.
And he didn't.
He just shut the door, and turned to her. There was amicability in his eyes. They were already too worn from fighting. He faced her, his voice sounding rough, but not unfriendly, as he spoke.
"Let's talk."
"Harry?" Ginny called as she jogged up the stairs of Grimmauld Place 12. She leaned against the banister, finally spotting that one open door, and headed toward it. She knocked on the doorframe, and looked at Harry, who was sitting inside, holding a book open on his lap. There was something about the concentration he had going. It wasn't as though he was reading. No. He wasn't reading…he was just staring. But what was he staring – "Tales of Beedle the Bard?" Ginny asked, eyebrow raised in surprise.
Harry finally looked up, momentarily flustered at being caught, but then he smiled. She entered, and sat down next to him, giving him a tender kiss on the cheek. He turned his face, to catch her lips in a proper kiss. It was short, but still left them both feeling light-headed and light-spirited.
"It was Hermione's," Harry explained, shutting it quietly.
He cast the book one more uneasy glance, before flicking his wand and sending it towards a shelf, where it settled itself between two books. Two books about Runes, Ginny noted. The gears in her head began to click into place as she turned to her husband with a sad, sympathetic smile.
Her husband. They'd been married just two months, and yet she couldn't help but feel her heart give a flutter as she thought of it. She was his wife. He was her husband. They. Were. Married.
Her sad smile must have transformed into a dreamy one, because Harry promptly kissed her out of her reverie. She blushed slightly, and kissed him back. His hand rose to her cheek, but she was already backing away from the kiss, albeit reluctantly. She looked around the room, giving it a short review.
Open drawers with what looked like women's clothes inside (not hers, mind). Two shelves stocked with various books (not hers, nor Harry's for the matter). Books on Runes. Books on Dark Arts. Books on Potions, Charms, Transfiguration and –
"This for Hermione, isn't it?" she sighed, turning back to Harry. But he merely gave her a weak smile and a shrug.
She got off the bed, and walked towards the dresser, picking up a beaded purse set on it. She turned towards Harry, leaning against the dresser, her fingers twirling the straps of the purse. She caught his eyes snap to the purse, and there was something in the way he looked at it that told her he was remembering something. She raised the purse, and he shook his head slightly, breaking away from his memory.
Then she said it, the same words that dampened both their hearts.
His because his heart was still breaking over his best friend. Hers because she could already see just how long he would be willing to hang onto the pieces.
"You're going to wait for her, aren't you?"
Ginny bit back a gasp as Harry swiftly moved towards her, causing her nerves to jump as they became separated by just a handful of inches. She could practically feel the heat radiating off him from the anxiety.
Then he raised his hand and rested it on the side of her face, running his fingers into her hair. There was something foreign to the feeling now. Ginny's presence used to make him happy. Running his hands through her hair used to always make him want to bend down and kiss her. But there was nothing there now, and they both knew it.
He did however bend down, and she flinched, afraid that maybe he might try. It was like they were children again. It felt embarrassing, but not in the same way. It didn't make her heart flutter. It just made her blood flush down to her knees. His lips were so close to hers she could feel his warm breath against her skin and her lips.
Please don't let him kiss me. Please don't.
Thoughts she never would've guessed she'd think.
But the truth was that she was scared. The doubt grew between them, and she knew just as well as he did that a kiss would change nothing. It was better not to try, and it would hurt less.
Harry Potter's wife. The title didn't even sound plausible anymore. It seemed like something you just write, or something you just say in order to fill up records or papers. It was like your address, required, but never really given much thought.
She didn't feel like his wife anymore, and he didn't feel like her husband. There was a mutual gap between them that no amount of physical contact or presence could fill.
Bright green eyes met bright brown eyes. His eyes were careful, hers kept themselves on guard. There was a lot of emotion there, but he knew his were brought up by other reasons. Harry let out a long breath as he took two defined steps backwards, and Ginny relaxed. She couldn't take it anymore. She just couldn't.
There was something missing at that moment, and it was slowly crushing them. She just couldn't.
"Do you still love me?" Ginny breathed.
"HARRY! HARRY!" Ginny thundered as she walked into Grimmauld Place 12. He'd walked out the day before, and the minute she got back – less than five minutes ago, she'd found that all things belonging to him and Teddy were gone. All. Gone. "HARRY POTTER, YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE LIKE THAT! YOU CAN'T JUST WALK IN AND TAKE OFF AS YOU PLEASE!" she bellowed up the staircase.
A mess of black hair came into view, and Harry found himself unable to say anything but: "Ginny?"
"Har – HARRY!" she yelled as he quickly ducked his head out of view.
She marched up the stairs, ignoring the paintings as they complained and tried to bicker with her. She found him on the same floor, and she bleeding knew that he would be in the same room. She placed her hand on the doorframe to maintain her balance as she caught sight of the scene before her.
Harry was inside the room, bent over what looked like broken glass, sweeping it up with his hand of all things. She felt like she was going to lose it then. His palm bore small cuts and he was biting his lip at the slight stings. And beside the broken glass was the remains of a broken picture frame, split into several wooden pieces.
"Harry," she said softly, kneeling at his side. "This isn't good."
"What isn't good?" he asked her absently, still picking up the glass. He was picking at a certain piece, almost too small to be picked up. Harry slammed his hand against the piece. "Damn it," he swore under his breath.
"Maybe it's time you let go."
"There's nothing to let go of," was his short reply as he carried the glass and dumped it in a nearby bin. He returned to the spot and began to pick up the wooden pieces. He was picking them up, completely ignoring the picture from the frame.
Hermione. It was a picture of Hermione.
"You keep chasing this possibility that you'll find her, and you haven't even actually tried searching," she said to him, snatching the picture and shoving it towards him. He caught it, not meeting her eyes.
Then she gasped as he crushed it in his fist.
"You're running in circles, Harry."
She waited for him to reply. To snap back at her like he sometimes did. But he just shook his head, and fiddled with the wooden pieces in his hands.
"What if she's worth it, Gin? She's always been worth it. She's always been worth so much." He shook his head, exasperated. Tired. Broken. "That…can't…change." He looked up at her, eyes filled with worry. "I moved out."
She grimaced slightly. "Pointing out the obvious, Harry. Why do you think I came here?"
"To drag my arse back home?" he offered, almost smiling.
Ginny wanted to smile too, but she shook her head at his question instead.
"Maybe…" she began. "Maybe it'd be better if you stayed here for a while."
Harry was speechless.
"Maybe…" Ginny added, taking the opportunity to get this out. "Maybe we need to re-evaluate this marriage."
"Ginny, I'm sorry," he said with so much sincerity that she managed to give him a small smile. He looked up at her, and found her eyes glazed with fresh tears as they slid down her cheeks.
He was sorry. She knew it, and that was all she really needed to know. That she wasn't treated like a mistake – young love and all that's ruined because of it. It didn't stop the tears from falling softly down her cheeks, but the burden and fear she once felt in her chest were now gone, and she felt like she could finally breathe again.
She wiped at her eyes before settling herself into the armchair. Harry pulled up the second one, and they were sitting across each other, armchair to armchair, their knees almost brushing against each other.
Her smile wasn't stretched or forced. It felt natural, and she felt lighter just by doing it. It felt as though she were smiling away a great heavy load that just didn't exist anymore. All that fear that she a mistake. All that fear that he thought they were a mistake. It was all gone.
Harry held his hand out to her, and she took it, giving him a light squeeze before pulling her hand away. There was a small moment where her smile slid off her face, but when she looked back at him, it returned. She wasn't angry anymore. She didn't feel like fighting, and she didn't feel like going on when she knew there was nothing left to go on for.
"You know how wizarding marriages are different from muggle ones, right?" she asked him.
He nodded, but avoided her eyes as he quoted the line he remembered well. "'Bonded for life'."
"I've heard that muggles have the option of something called 'divorce', and how that usually means that they don't have to be married anymore."
Harry nodded again. His voice was void of emotion. Everything coming out of his mouth was recited as though it was a fact. "Wizarding marriages don't have 'divorce' options."
"Yes. But…bonds can be broken," she said softly, taking a deep breath. "The Marriage Bond doesn't mean that you will be bonded until somebody dies. Magic is all about love, Harry. And love plays a very effective role in magic. I think you know that."
He nodded. "My mother." He couldn't help but say it with a small smile, which she returned as she nodded.
"So, you see, magic believes that there is life where there is love. 'Bonded for life' isn't a death sentence, Harry. It just means…bonded while the love lives."
"I never wanted to hurt you, Gin. I thought –"
"- that it'd be forever," Ginny said, nodding in agreement. She pulled her hands away from her face, and looked at him with a bitter smile. "So did I." Ginny readjusted herself, and found the strength to look him in the eye as she continued. "Magic also believes that there should never be hate where there was once love. Marriage, when it comes to the wizarding world, is never a mistake, and the choice to be bonded and get married should never be regretted. But there are…times…when even magic accepts that the love is not anymore."
"But –"
She held her hand up, shaking her head slightly at him. She needed to finish this.
"So, well…the laws the bond stands by state that if there is no hate between the bonded people…and if there is no longer any love…then there is no need for the bond."
"Wizarding divorce," Harry muttered, his head beginning to ring as the words dove into his brain.
Ginny shook her head. "Not really. Wizards don't believe in divorce, Harry. They don't believe in the right to just leave someone because you're unhappy. You have to always consider you partner in all of it. That's why it's not called 'breaking' a Marriage bond. It's merely 'ending'. It has to be an agreement. I believe they thought of it this way: You both agreed to be bonded, now you must both agree to be unbonded. If there are any ill-feelings coming from either husband or wife…if one blames the other for what has happened between them…it won't happen. Magic is very particular about sincerity. I guess wizards just didn't want bonds to end because of pettiness."
There was a silence that Ginny allowed as Harry considered the information she'd just provided him.
"We are not petty people," she whispered to him. Although maybe she was saying it to herself as well.
He looked up at her, and he was actually smiling.
"No. We're not."
"So, do you still love me, Harry Potter?" she asked him, inclining her head slightly to gesture that he should answer properly. "We're both done hurting anyway. We could do with some peace."
"I want to believe that I do, Gin. I swear," he said sincerely, ignoring her last bit. He didn't want to hurt her. That was one thing. He just never wanted to hurt her. Not intentionally. Never.
"Do you still love me, Harry Potter?" she asked again, smiling to acknowledge his answer. She waited for him to find the words, and tried to meet his eyes…to let him know that it was all right to tell the truth. And it was. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have gotten this far.
"No." It was as small a word as that, and it came out like a whisper. Ginny nodded, turning away from him for a moment. He looked at her, and found himself also asking: "Do you still love me, Ginerva Potter?"
Ginny looked down at her hands, her fingers fumbling around her wedding ring. She kept twisting it from side to side. But she wasn't pulling it off. Harry knew how easily she could do it. She once chucked it at him during a fight. She just seemed to be finding it difficult to look at it, so she looked at him, and gave him a genuine smile. No anger. No grudges. Not even a sense of pain.
"No."
The word must have been a stunning spell, because he couldn't feel anything after it. A few seconds passed before a new feeling dawned on him.
Ice-cold water.
It felt as though ice-cold water had been poured on his head, and was soaking his clothes and his body, but there wasn't even a droplet to be spotted. He could move now, no longer feeling stunned. When the feeling passed, he felt as though a huge cut in his heart had been stitched up. There was no more looming darkness above his head.
Their eyes found each other again, but they were looking at each other in a whole different light. There was no more shame, no regret at what they had said, and what they were no longer feeling towards each other.
"Unfortunately, when we forfeit our bond, we forfeit our rings," she said with a small smile. And he saw it. No more rings. "Bonds can be broken, Harry," Ginny repeated once more as she stood up.
Harry stood up as well, and held out his arms awkwardly. Ginny beat the awkwardness out of him by giving him a tight embrace. And he just went out and said it.
"You'll find it one day," he swore to her. She leaned backwards to get a better look at his face. She was smiling; crying again, but her smile was a bowl to catch her tears.
"You'll…she'll…" she blinked, trying to get the tears out of her eyes. "She'll stay. She'll stay for you."
And he just smiled at her in response, hugging her once more and giving her a quick kiss on the top of her head.
"Thank you," he whispered.
Ron was acting on a hunch here, but as he trudged up the stairs of Grimmauld Place 12, he knew that he was right. By the time he reached the bedroom he had been aiming for, he could already hear muttering coming from inside. He grinned, thinking to himself: Ten points to Gryffindor. Well earned, Mr. Weasley.
He would even wager another ten points that when he opened the door, he would probably find Harry by the bookshelf, holding or looking at Hermione's books. He was always doing that, examining them in some way or the other. It was like he was trying to find clues. Ofcourse, well…he hadn't.
Ron gripped onto the doorknob, and swung. He would have taken a step forward. He would have jovially greeted his friend with a certain loudness and spirit that could make Harry cringe.
Instead, he groaned.
Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley.
"Have you finally lost it?" Ron asked weakly, staring at the mess before his eyes.
He could see that drawers had been pulled out and placed on the bed, clothes strewn across haphazardly. Books lay in piles. Some opened, some tossed at the side. And there was just something about the room then that invigorated him. Right there and then.
"Sorry," Harry said, pushing clothes off one of the drawers, and carrying it back. He slid it into place, his eyes bouncing back from the drawer to the clothes, to other scraps that had been cast around the room. Everything was a mess. Everything looked disorganized.
But there was something else. Something was nagging at him, and he couldn't figure it out. It wasn't the lack of concentration in Harry – this he had grown accustomed to whenever Harry made one of his magnificent spur-of-the-moment decisions to do with Hermione. He once walked out of practice in the very middle of it, and just left Ron behind to explain why he had suddenly run off. He once left a Weasley dinner early, leaving Ginny behind even to return to this one room.
Luna had gone on the record many times before saying it broke her heart to see Harry so disheveled. It was like one minute he was a normal wizard, and the next his heartbeat was racing, his breathing was coarse and he had this glint of determination in his eyes that just shone against the light. He became a different person then.
He would spend hours in the room, either looking for something, or just enjoying the one part of Hermione that remained. Sometimes Ron would join him, and they'd play a game of Wizard's Chess. Every time a piece got killed off, the owner of that piece would give out a tidbit about Hermione. They played that game atleast twice a year. For example, that one time three years after she'd left.
"Argh. Why'd you have to do that?"
"Your rook was begging for it, Harry."
"Fine, fine."
"Go on then. Get it over with so I can continue kicking your arse at this game."
There was a bit of silence; a moment of thought.
Then a familiar grin; a moment of reminiscing.
"Those planner things she gave us that one Christmas!"
"Bloody – I forgot about those. I think mine's still stuffed up in the attic of the Burrow. Where's yours?"
"I'm…I'm not. Wait. I think it's…here it is."And Ron had watched as Harry bent down in the closet over another box. He had craned his neck to try and see what was inside. More of Hermione's things?
And then Harry pulled it out. A planner.
Nope, Harry's things...from Hermione.
"…dot…i…" the planner groaned as Harry opened it.
Then they both burst out laughing until they couldn't breathe, as always, and all the facts would come pouring out.
"She punched Malfoy!"
"Ron, you need to stop mentioning that. You mention it every time."
"Not all of us can be as original as you, Harry! We haven't noticed what she smells like –"
"Vanilla. Oddest thing."
"Yeah. That's what's odd. Not the fact that you somehow managed to catch on to the fact that she smells like vanilla."
"It's not my fault you have a troll's sense of smell –"
"The troll in first year!"
"Bloody brilliant that was..."
More laughter.
"Goodness, I miss her."
Silence.
"Harry?"
"I miss her too."
Silence.
The same silence that enveloped the room then as Ron tried to find that bit that was pulling at his strings and trying to make him remember. He just couldn't find it, and he knew he was openly searching now. Harry was re-stacking books.
"Oh."
And Harry just smiled, knowingly as he shook his head at his best friend.
"Finally got your troll's sense of smell fixed then, didn't you?"
And Ron just chuckled, walking to the bed and picking up the drawer. He slid it back into its place, just as Harry walked over with the last drawer. Once that was in place, they moved towards the clothes.
Harry didn't look disheveled anymore. He looked like the most stable and calm person, who'd survived all the books and furniture flying at him. He was concentrating. And then he said the most obvious thing, with the saddest voice; a voice Ron knew would have broken Luna. Heck, it could have broken him. Harry was just being honest now. There was a low tone to his voice, and an obvious misery to the edge of his words.
He was having one of those moments where he would say something to do with Hermione, and make it sound like a secret. No one else could know. And not the good kinds of secrets. The kinds of secrets that told you: This person really trusts me if he's telling me this.
It wasn't as though Ron didn't know. And it wasn't as though Harry had forgotten that they'd just mentioned it earlier, albeit discretely.
But he said it anyway.
"It smells like her in here."
Twenty points to Mr. Potter.
A/N: Thank you for bearing with me during this. Next chapter will be completely Harry and Hermione – PROMISE. I did this chapter so that ONE: The Harry/Ginny thing could end peacefully and TWO: So you guys could get an insight into how Harry dealt and felt about Hermione and Hermione leaving.
About the way I dealt with the Marriage Bond, this is my explanation in the simplest terms: I just believed that marriage and divorce in the Wizarding world was about it being sincere, without the hatred and the anger we can sometimes see in normal divorces since normal divorces might sometimes be one-sided, or afterwards the couple end up hating each other. So I figured that maybe – just maybe – if both parties were okay with it, and there was no hate, then there was no point for magic to force them to be with each other. Because *that* isn't love. Please don't flame me if you think it was a bad way for me to deal with it. I just didn't want to make Ginny a necessarily bad person.
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