15

Ginny's punishment had not been as severe as she had expected when she had arrived back to the Burrow accompanied by her father, as the announcement of Harry turning up alive at Grimmauld Place sort of, let her off the hook. Her mother seemed to have forgotten what she was yelling at Ginny for; Ron was not sure how to take it, he looked half confused as if expecting them to shout out "just kidding" unexpectedly; Hermione, as always, seemed in doubt without proof, and looked slightly unsettled when Arthur agreed for her to come along to the Ministry so she could see for herself that Harry was alive: Ron gathered himself in time to insist that he was to go too.

Molly merely stared into space, and continued to when Arthur gave her a peck on the cheek and then left for the Ministry without a word; Ron and Hermione followed him, both were looking pale and still in a slight haze of shock. Ginny did not wait for the penny to drop; she left her mother alone and intelligently made for her room in case there was more punishment to come her way.

As she slid into her room and calmly locked the door behind her, she edged over to sit on her bed and stared into space too, waiting inevitability for her emotions to play catch up so she may begin to cry. It was not the fact that she had been sent to her room without supper, while starving and having her tummy rumble loudly over her sobs; but rather the fact that Harry Potter was still alive, and that he had left her in the dark about it for over seven months now.

It had taken an accidental incident - such as the simple sound of a ceramic plate dropping onto a tiled kitchen floor, of a house that two people occupied, each oblivious to the other – that brought forward an unwilling meeting that had found Harry out. Naturally, she had taken some of her growing anger out on him, but she could not say for certain that there was no more hell to pay.

The eventual shock of everything seemed to pass rather quickly for Ginny, so much so that it was some time after she had stopped crying that she began to wipe her eyes dry. She sighed heavily as she lay backwards onto her bed, staring at the ceiling and hearing the distant noises of her mother downstairs who seemed to have managed to snap out of the trance Ginny had left her in, and was naturally cleaning things.

Ginny sort of dropped into a sub-conscious slumber, unaware of just how rapidly time was passing and was suddenly awakening to the distant sounds of Arthur, Ron and Hermione returning from the Ministry. She didn't have to wonder long what had happened, she guessed quite easily that it hadn't gone well at all as she heard Hermione streak past her door, making sounds that could only mean she was both angry and in tears. Ron was tearing after her, his footsteps thudded against the old moth-eaten floor and he was muttering things like "careless" and "disrespect" and other abusive words that do not need repeating, as he went.

Ginny didn't bother leaving her room; she could hear the distant voices of her mother and father debating a topic in the kitchen and she had no doubt it was the exact issue in which Ginny had been mellowing over since her arrival back from Grimmauld Place. Where was she to go from here? How could she ever forgive Harry? Could she go through life without Harry, knowing that he still existed? Would she ever get an honest reason from him why he had forgotten to mention to her that, for seven months, he had been hiding in Lupin Lodge and had decided not to show himself to her despite how often she came through there?

She suspected Ron and Hermione were in the same boat somehow, they were his best friends after all. They had been at his side for years, always supporting him and helping him and he in return he had treated them, treated Ginny, treated the world – as if it didn't exist. And here she thought, with a searing pain in her stomach that felt as if she had been jabbed with a rather large knife: that only two days ago, Ron and Hermione had announced their Engagement and they were moving on with their lives.

Questions began to pop up all over the place in Ginny's mind. Would this affect their wedding? It was bound to somehow. Were they going to put it off? Would they allow Harry to attend the Wedding? What would happen if he showed up without an invite? It was a continuos guessing game that seemed endless, and yet if Harry had the courage to come out and explained everything, explain his actions – then perhaps, just maybe there was a chance of things straightening out.

Ginny turned to one side and stared out her window from the position on her bed; light was beginning to fade, the sun in which she had gone walking in earlier that day ceased to exist, and the eerie silence that had filled the Burrow from the aftermath of such events seemed to settle and there was general echoed chatter through the hallways again. And the feeling of pure common sense began to return to Ginny's body – she did not just want things to end now, to ruin her life and Harry's life and more importantly, Ron and Hermione's soon-to-be new life.

After all, Harry and Ginny have a history together.

As if on que, a truly lightened thought then occurred to her, like a memory bobbing to the surface of her mind as if it had been waiting for something to trigger it. It was a memory that made her feel happy, yet empty and unsure, and it was due to recent events that this memory now occurred and made her insides squirm. It had been before the war, before they were to depart into the final battle that was either going to see their victory, or defeat.

… Harry had dragged her from the room and pushed Ginny firmly against the wall, kissing her thoroughly and letting his arms wander before restraining himself pulling back, their noses as close together as they could be without touching and their eyes were clearly upon each other despite the rather dull light. Harry moved a strain of dirty red hair from her face and smiled, letting the remaining scent that dwelled on her run through his nostrils before gathering himself in order to say what he needed to say.

'Gin I love you,' he whispered, their lips were almost touching, 'you know I do and, what ever happens-'

'I know, Harry.'

'I want you to go with Ron and Hermione,' Harry finished, Ginny stared at him; the plan had been she was to go with him, to fight side-by-side, regardless what the Dark Lord has planned for her. But he could not face life if she died, in case something horrible was to go wrong, 'and I don't want an argument.'

'But Harry-'

'Understand that this is important, Gin,' Harry uttered, she was so close he could have sworn he could taste her; but he quickly realised that she had already been on his lips. 'No matter the circumstance, we are to continue battling until the death: so, Gin, I don't want to get ahead of myself here but…'

There was a moment's pause where they heard distant yelling to their right.

'What Harry?' she whispered.

'Ginny Weasley,' Harry whispered in return, his bottom lip began quivering in a mixture of fear and anticipation, 'if we make it through this, if we come out the other end… will you-'

'What?' Ginny whispered; she thought she knew what was coming, despite the dullness of light she could see his emerald eyes twinkle at her.

'Marry me.' He blurted out.

Another pause; the yelling was getting louder. Ginny could hear her name being yelled, and Harry's also, people were getting closer as Ginny stared at him with a furrowed brow, her legs were numb and beginning to falter under her weight.

'What?' She repeated.

A clear voice from somewhere yelled, 'Ginny!'

Harry seemed to be fading away slowly, very slowly, still without an answer.

A second booming voice clearly bellowed, 'GINNY!'

'Ginny! Wake up!'

'I will, Harry!' Ginny spat as she sat up, staring around and blinking stupidly.

'What?'

'What?' Ginny snapped.

She stared blankly back at Hermione, suddenly aware she had fallen asleep and that she was back in her room and it was seemingly, by the look out her window, morning. Hermione was looking at her wearily, her eyes were slightly blood shot from lack of sleep and there were noticeable mascara rings under her eyes from where she had been crying.

'You will what?' Hermione said hotly, she tried to hide the fact that Harry's name had been mention.

'Nothing.' Ginny said quickly.

There was a moments pause where they stared at each other, Ginny still felt slightly flushed from the dream and was quickly looking for an escape route.

'Come on then,' Hermione said, taking Ginny's morning robe of a hanger and chucking it to her. 'Breakfast.'

It seemed as if they had all gone to bed last night, in the hope that when they woke up they would find everything that happened yesterday to have been all an impossible dream. So when The Daily Prophet arrived bearing several front pages on Harry Potter's return, it put a sort of dampened mood upon all of them and reduced breakfast to no conversation at all. The only words spoken, other than the occasional mutter to pass on the syrup for their pancakes, was of Ron and Hermione's polite excuses to leave the table and wander upstairs where they would more than likely spend the entirety of the day.

Ginny sat there eerily, poking her food occasionally but not taking a bite. Her mother didn't seem to notice, and when Arthur left for work in a rush (explaining he had so much paperwork to finish than if piled as one might challenge the height of the tallest tower at Hogwarts) Molly set to work cleaning. Ginny would have had the heart to help, but the dream she had had last night had made her think so strongly of Harry that she went to her room and began to pace at such a rate, one of the pictures on her wall of her distant Uncle, barked at her to stop because it was making him dizzy.

-

Harry was snoring loudly, perhaps for the first time in months. The tiring events following his exposure from hiding since the war seemed to put him into an easy sleep, and he had been asleep since he had gotten back from the Ministry yesterday. An owl had awoken him though, delivering The Daily Prophet with the news of his return from non-existence. He had glanced at it briefly before returning to bed, unaware that an owl with the latest issue of the Quibbler would swoop in a minute later and drop it on his forehead. He had again scanned the pages and thrown it aside to turn over and get back to sleep.
The Daily Prophet was now folded up on his desk, issuing a full headline that read:

HARRY POTTER RETURNS: 'THE DARK LORD DIED FROM MY WAND'

They had managed to prolong Harry's very few comments into three very committed front pages, repeating things he had said but using the words differently or putting the same words in another order. The Quibbler, which now lay near his trunk, had forced a small caption of Harry on the front page with a similar title, but they had only strung a few sentences together at the back underneath a much larger story on the growing rate of cannibalistic house-elves.

Harry was not one to care about what they put in the news about him anymore, as his friends seemed to have taken the discovery of his still-being rather personally, it seemed a somewhat distant and bleak outcome for him had been ensured anyway. Remus had tried to get Harry to act upon this as a progressive step, rather than a negative one. He had knocked hundreds of times, offering some food so they could chat, or suggesting they go to Diagon Ally in the morning so they could start over; but the potential thought of random Witches and Wizards coming up to him to congratulate him on defeating the Dark Lord simply deterred Harry completely.

Remus had left at some point last night, and he had said in passing that he was going to go and stay with Nymphadora so that Harry could have more time to mull things over alone. Foolishly you might say it was, to allow Harry to wake from this idiotic slumber alone, to hope he would take charge of his life, and to believe he would emerge when he was ready. The imminent problem with this theory was, Harry had been mulling things over for just on seven months now and it could only be suggested as pointless for him to continue.

There was a loud clatter in the distance, as though a jet plane was flying over head or car backfired on the nearest highway – either way Harry stirred and he opened his eyes, stretching and yawning as he blinked at the dismal afternoon sun. He felt tired and stiff, like he had been hibernating for seven months instead of hiding. The coolness of winter ran Goosebumps along his neck and shoulders, the arm in which he had been sleeping on felt numb and full of needles.

Rising from his bed he stretched again, looking around the room rather bored and resting his gaze upon a magazine lying rather carelessly on the floor. He crossed the room to fetch it, and as he turned it up the right way he frowned at the abysmal way he looked in the caption – he hastily threw it over his shoulder in disgust and in luck, it landed with a dull 'thud' in his waste paper basket.

He felt lost. Despite the fact that he had spent every waking moment since the end of the war desperately hoping that he would have the guts to tell his friends he was alive, Harry felt that now they knew by un-intentions of his own, things have considerably changed. His friends seem to think of him now, as merely an unwanted acquaintance – a burden that has affected their life so that it hurts to see him, hurts to be in the same room with him it hurts: it hurts to think about him.

Well, that was the general feeling he got from all three of his closest friends in which he had told so far – Ginny most obviously being the more affected, and hence more aggressive from bottling up her frustration.

Harry thumped his desk with his fist in equal frustration as he sat down, holding his head in his hands with his elbows on his desk and letting out a prostrated sigh. How was he to correct all this? He wasn't accepted back to the Burrow, Ron had made that clear. In addition, Hedwig had arrived at his window shortly after his return from the Ministry, clasping a slightly threatening letter that told him not to show up or he would most definitely come out worse for wear.

Harry wasn't going to disrespect Ron for protecting Ginny, most brothers would do the same, and Harry knew that there was more than likely unpleasant things to come his way again – but he would be ready for that when such a time occurs. Until then, he figured his Christmas was going to pass quietly; so he was at least glad that his older friend was most likely getting some during the holidays, even if it meant he would have to, one day in the not so distant future, move out of the way when Nymphadora Tonks moved in.