Harry raises his head from between her freckled thighs, Ginny's toes curling against his chest and her spine arching into the windowpane. His hand grips the warm back of her right thigh and Harry straightens, the other palm leaning into the glass for support, close to her shoulder blade, as he drags his hungry mouth over hers. The tip of his tongue rolls against her bottom lip, Ginny's legs coiling around him as he finds his way inside her again.
Funny how at first he'd been afraid to be with her with the light on and now Harry suddenly feels like he has nothing to hide; that it's alright, that it is exactly as it should be and, strangely, that he feels safe with her.
Ginny's forehead rests onto his shoulder, his palms now pressing into the window, searching for his balance as his body thrusts, her whole body flush, melting into his. By now, Harry knows she likes it fast and fast he goes, knees working up the speed little by little.
She grazes his neck with her lips and his hands fly helplessly to her hair, cupping her jaw to kiss her properly, to kiss her deeply, to lose himself fully into her.
A clatter just below the sill as she knocks over something - something that sounds alarmingly like his glasses, along with something softer. Ginny wraps her body tightly around his, pushing him deeper within her, and Harry completely forgets about it. He takes her back to bed.
"Harry," she calls his name, letters tumbling out in an exhale, ragged, almost breathless, as her fingers grip his hair; his mouth is at her breast, tongue tasting her perking nipple and she holds him closer to her chest, palm against his sweaty temple. Two fingers roll around her clit, carefully stroking it, and he continues to fuck her till she comes.
Later, when the adrenaline had run off and there's only jaded bliss, Harry holds her next to him, her ginger head against his chest, a mess of sheets and scattered clothes around them. He smiles tiredly, flowers catching roots inside him.
All thoughts of death are gone now.
"Be back in a tick," he whispers, gently placing her head onto the worn out pillows. She's half-asleep and beautiful, and Harry softly kisses her.
He pads quietly to where his glasses had fallen, fingers tapping the wooden floor to find them. They quickly move over the metal rims and land onto a paper scroll, tips of his fingers making out the waxy seal of the Ministry. Thoughts of a future start forming around the frazzled edges of his mind, a blurry image of some kind of happier days, serene days nibbling, tender, at the back of his head.
He shoves his glasses on as he gets up, hands now working to unroll the scroll. The words finally shift into focus, and his heart briefly stops.
A profound, endless pit forms in his stomach as Harry automatically reaches for the sill for support. His eyes wander to the window, realisation slowly washing over him. What had he done?
He remembers how earlier he had thought there was nothing he needed to hide, having her naked up against the glass window at dawn. A hollow laugh escapes him, derisive and short like a bark.
Harry moves almost robotically, stoops above the desk to scribble on a torn piece of paper. The indications he writes are clear and concise, he's careful not to leave any room for interpretation.
"Here," his tongue almost hurts as he says it, hand aches as he shakes her awake. Ginny simply blinks at him blearily, blinks at the piece of paper he is showing her.
"Harry, what -"
"You need to leave. You need to go to this address exactly, you need to go and stay there. It's one of our safe houses, you should find everything you need in there."
His face barely moves as he speaks out the words, ice now covering the insides of his chest, making its way up his throat. If he doesn't hurry, he'll freeze - he'll shut down and scream into the morning stillness, scream in despair and anger, scream in atonement for his own foolishness.
"What are you on about?" Her face is still, but Harry can see she's hurt. He can see it in her eyes, in the way she now clutches the sheet to her chest, hiding her body from his gaze. Her body that he held and kissed and touched not long ago, in a completely different world.
A world too beautiful for him to know, to dip more than a toe in it, to have more than a taste.
"I can't tell you," he says, brash, suddenly aware of his own nakedness. "Please, Ginny, just go. You can't come here anymore - in fact, if you do try to leave the safe house, I'll have you arrested, do you understand?"
Her gaze is scorching as she snatches the slip of paper, nimbly jumping out of bed to search for her discarded clothes. Harry watches her as she dresses with clipped, erratic movements, something like lead inside his mouth.
"Don't try to come see me," she adds, furious, one shoe gripped in her left hand.
"Ha," Harry barks another laugh, the words escaping him before he can properly think, "don't worry. I won't."
The words sound hollow in the empty house, bouncing off the nothingness inside his chest. He'd started to think he could finally have something, but it's always - always, always nothing.
The door bangs shut and he's finally alone - miserable and alone with his thoughts, alone with his guilt and sorrow. And there, in the gentle morning light, Harry breaks down and cries for all the women who've been killed. He cries for Madeline Belby, who'd just become a wife, he cries for Susan Danes, who'd missed her chance at a career; he cries for Mary Tart, who'd been a calming, pacifying presence in his first days at the Ministry and he cries for Agnes, the overbearing Department secretary, who'd always helped him disappear when he needed to, with a brief smile and a wink. He'd always thought of her as a Mrs Weasley in the making...her warm countenance, her dark red hair clipped just a palm above her shoulders…
He cries for all of them, thinking of the lives they could have had if he'd been better. If only he'd been better…
"So not only have you involved the entire department into an almost 24h operation that cost us beyond what we could have ever afforded in a Department so understaffed as this one is, but you've also sent the wrong person to Azkaban," Robards fumes, two fingers on a pulsing vein at his temple. "This bloody cock up is in the press, Potter, the press! And now - now we're preparing a funeral for one of our people. That woman had never done anything wrong."
Gawain Robards' rage briefly subsides, the anger in his eyes replaced by something akin to sadness, to hurt, his black eyes like two deep wounds oozing. For a short moment, Harry wonders if there had ever been anything more between his boss and their secretary.
Former secretary, he reminds himself and flinches.
"I -"
"No, shut up. Shut the fuck up this time and listen to me. We look like complete idiots!" he roars, eyes now like blazing coals in their sockets. "You need to fix this - and pay close attention, Potter, because my patience has run out. You bring in our only viable suspect and in she bloody stays until you're able to support your conclusion with some bloody facts."
His mind wanders to Ginny, alone in the safe house.
Harry's windpipe constricts, heart leaping. "Sir," he starts rather weakly, forcing himself to make the rest of the sentence sound better, more convincing, as though he's really a Senior Auror and not the teenager he currently feels like. "It's not in her nature to kill. Hex? Probably, but never kill. If I could -"
"How would you bloody know?" Robards resumes his roaring. "I have it in writing that you haven't communicated with her since childhood and neither have her family. How would you know, Potter?"
Harry suddenly realises he'd been silent for too long, an image of him telling Snape that Roonil Wazlib is his nickname passing momentarily before his eyes. His mouth runs dry.
"Only if," Robards' words resonate over the heart drumming in Harry's ears, "fuck me, Potter, what have you done? Don't tell me - oh, you bloody prick."
Harry draws in a giant breath, grounding himself in his chair opposite his boss. He has the distinct impression that, had there not been a massive desk separating them, Robards would have throttled him first and asked questions later.
"I haven't - it's not like that -"
"Get out! Get the fuck out and bring that suspect in. Do you hear me? You walk her right in and if the next person we arrest isn't the right murderer, Potter, you can consider yourself fired. If the next person we arrest isn't the murderer, I will personally kick you out and make sure you never set foot in the Ministry again. Understood?"
There's no shouting this time - only a trembling fury, cold and vicious, emanating from his boss's grizzly bear-like form.
"Can't fucking believe fucking Williamson was right," Harry hears as he backs out and it's perhaps that which makes his arm jolt and the door bang shut.
He'd deal with the consequences of this particular act of insolence later.
The back of his head makes painful contact with a wall before Harry can decide which way to go.
"Ow - what is wrong with you?"
"What is wrong with me?!" a fuming Ron spits, the tip of his wand stuck under Harry's jaw. "What the fuck is wrong with you?! You've been with her this whole time, haven't you? Yeah, that's right, I heard you. The entire bloody Auror Department heard, actually."
Harry's speechless as he stands pressed into the wall, Ron's red face a breath away from his. He feels like his knees might fail him - the rage and hurt in those blue eyes - he'd never really thought he'd have to explain what he'd done to Ron.
"She didn't want to go to The Burrow," he tries, meekly.
But it only makes things worse, as Ron's jaw clenches, the bags under his eyes contrasting with his now blanching face. "You meddle into my family's business again," he hisses, low, almost dangerous, "you put them in danger again, and I'll hex you into oblivion."
It's probably the fact that Ron says 'his family', as though Harry doesn't belong, as though it's not his family too, that leaves him gutted, unable to speak. The Weasleys had always been there for him as Harry had always been there for them, the one family that had only treated him as if he'd been born one of them.
Harry's heart breaks.
Ron drags his wand away, shoves it deep into his pocket, chest still heaving fiercely. "Thanks for adding to my sister's reputation, Potter."
A loud clatter disrupts the complete stillness etched throughout the floor, a hubbub of brooms and buckets and mops rolling and falling in Ron's wake as he briefly connects with the caretaker.
"Sorry," Harry mumbles, weak, and crouches to help him regain control of his cleaning stack. Chancing a glance upwards, Harry sees a few of his coworkers as they scuttle out of Ron's way. "He's usually not like this, it's just…" Harry starts, but quickly realises he has no idea where he's going with this; his hands continue to work, but his heart doesn't, mind racing in circles inside his aching skull.
Is this how Ginny had felt? Is this how she still feels?
The caretaker's light blue eyes meet his when Harry straightens his shoulders, so staggeringly blue, almost otherworldly, it sends a chill right down his spine. He wonders where he'd seen such eyes - or if he'd ever seen them, no feeling, no expression hidden in their depths.
"Not the Aurors' best days," the man says, nodding, and Harry's genuinely surprised to hear him talk; usually, he mumbles into the floor and walks away, the distinct noise of water splashing over the brim of a bucket and cleaning items banging together following him. "Another one had a fit last night," his hand sticks out towards Williamson, the skin stretching yellow over it, "he'd fought with that woman. The one who died," the caretaker adds in a hollow whisper.
Harry wants to tell him that she didn't die. Agnes, like all the other women, had been murdered.
But then his Auror instincts kick in and he's darting away from the cleaning supplies, his hands firmly gripping the ends of Williamson's robes, dragging him out of his cubicle.
"You were looking for the case report, weren't you?" Harry nearly spits in his face.
"Unhand me, Potter!"
"You were, weren't you? And Agnes wouldn't let you take it - this is what happened, isn't it?"
"Take your hands off me, you -"
"Is that why you murdered her, Williamson? Is that why you did it, you bloody -"
"POTTER!" Robards roars from behind him, but Harry simply ignores him. He calmly pulls out his wand and starts flicking it in a well rehearsed motion when something draws his full attention, rendering him momentarily still: Neville, face flashing beetroot, sits sprawled on the floor as a leftover bucket rolls noisily behind him.
And it's like someone had pulled a pair of thick, black curtains from Harry's eyes. He can finally see clearly.