Chapter 4: Mending
Harry sat on a hill, looking over Ottery St. Catchpole. The sun shone brightly over the little village, and on the horizon, the sea sparkled in its light. The morning was warm and fresh, and Harry was relishing this opportunity to escape the dead house.
"Harry," A voice spoke softly from behind him. He turned to see Ginny.
"Hey," She cam and sat down beside him, wrapping her arms around her knees. Nothing more was said, and they together they watched the sun climb higher in the sky.
"I need to talk to you." She said eventually. Harry found himself nodding, his eyes firmly fixed on the sea.
"About us," Ginny continued, "It seems as though we've just been continuing as though nothing happened, as though you didn't break up with me, leave me behind."
"Ginny, you know why I did that..."
"I know, but on your birthday, after I, uh, gave you your present," Harry remembered vividly. "You barely spoke to me afterwards. I kind of hoped you would ask me to dance at the wedding, but then everything went crazy..."
"Ron told me not to play you around. He said that you were really upset by the break up. I didn't want to hurt you." Ginny nodded, but continued to stare at her hands.
"There's something else, isn't there." said Harry. She nodded again.
"You let Voldemort kill you. You just walked out of the castle, leaving behind everyone who had fought to protect you, people who had died for you! That's not fair, Harry!" Finally, she turned her head to look at him, her expression one of anguish.
"I had to," He said, softly, "So many more people would have died. And it was the only way I could stop him. He was inside me, Ginny. Part of his soul, in me! While that bit was in me, he couldn't die. If I let him kill me, that bit died too, and if Neville killed the snake, then that gave the rest of you the chance to kill him. I did it to save everyone. I had to."
"You didn't say goodbye."
"You wouldn't have let me go." He reasoned.
"You would have found a way to go, anyway." Ginny countered.
"I don't know if I would have been able to."
They fell back into silence.
"Tell me what actually happened."
Harry had known she would ask this at some point, but he wasn't sure if he was ready to tell her yet. He stood up, and fixed his eyes on the horizon again, thinking how to say it all.
"I found out what I had to do," He began hesitantly. "So I left the castle, under the invisibility cloak. I told Neville to try and kill Nagini..." He paused, wondering how to go on. "I passed you. I passed you, helping a girl..." Harry looked back at her, expecting her to say something, but she just looked at him, her eyes soft. "I wanted to go to you, it hurt me not to be able to... So I kept walking. I found him in the forest. And-" He was unable to continue.
"Harry," He turned. Ginny had moved to stand behind him. Her eyes shone with tears. She flung her arms around his neck, and hugged him tightly.
"You were so brave," She murmured into his chest.
"I thought of you," he whispered, "Just before he did it, I thought of you." Ginny pulled away slightly, staring into his eyes. Then she leaned up, and kissed him. It was just like his birthday, all those months ago, and once again, everything was her; the flowery smell of her hair, it's softness between his fingers, the feel of her beneath his hands and on his lips. The sun danced around them, and below, in the Weasley's orchard, someone stood alone, head hung and shoulders slumped, but they noticed none of this. All they knew was each other.
Harry couldn't put returning to the Burrow off any longer. Today, the Weasleys had been making the plans for Fred's funeral, and the mood in the house was sombre. Harry had not thought it his place to intrude on the arrangements, so had slipped out just after breakfast. Setting off back down the hill with Ginny, something suddenly occurred to him.
"Why aren't you helping with...?" There it was again. Fred's name had not been spoken since his death. It was too painful.
"I couldn't stand it in there, thinking about it." She told him quietly. "Hermione went off somewhere as well, and Ron wasn't saying anything, and neither was George. In fact, no one really said very much. I excused myself."
"Harry?" Ginny said, softly, after a moment.
"Yeah?"
"Let's take it slow, okay?" Harry nodded, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
Harry and Ginny entered the living room together to see the Weasleys sitting with mugs of tea, in silence.
George was nowhere to be seen. "Hey," said Ginny. Mrs Weasley looked up.
"Oh hello, Ginny dear. I was wondering where you had got to.
"Sorry, mum. I just..." Molly nodded, needing no explanation.
"Harry! There you are! Ron got up this morning and said you had gone, we were beginning to get worried."
"Sorry, Mrs Weasley."
"It's okay, love. Kingsley sent an owl, by the way. He said they've checked over and secured Grimmauld Place."
"Oh, okay."
Harry glanced around the room. Charlie, Bill, Fleur, Mr Weasley and Mrs Weasley were all sat around the coffee table, which had pieces of paper advertising everything from flowers to tomb stone engravings. A piece of parchment covered in scribbles and tea stains sat the middle of the table, along with a quill and a pot of black ink.
"How's, uh, the planning going?" He asked cautiously. Mr Weasley sighed.
"Not well. It would be so much better if George would talk to us, or even stay in the house. I wish he would say something." He looked round at the rest of the family. Ron and Percy were sitting on the sofa, looking everywhere but the table covered in dreadful reminders...
"We should give 'im ze best funeral zat anybody 'as ever 'ad!" Said Fleur, suddenly, making them all jump. "Zere shall be flowers of every colour imaginable, and zer shall be everybody he knew zer."e deserves a funeral fit for ze king of France!"
"Well, I'm not sure we can afford..." Mr Weasley began.
"Who cares? Money is no matter! He should have only ze best! I shall pay out of my own pocket if I have to!" Every single person in the room looked utterly gob smacked. They certainly had not expecting this from her.
"Fleur... We don't expect you to do that. It wouldn't be fair." Mrs Weasley tried to say.
"Why not? I am part of zis family too now, am I not? 'e was like a brother to me. No, 'e was my brother! Should I not want to send 'im off in ze best way possible; in the way 'e deserves?" Fleur abruptly burst into tears, and Harry and Ginny exchanged startled looks. Bill stood up, and placed a hand on his wife's arm.
"I don't think Mum meant it like that, Love. I think she just meant that this is a big thing, and it wouldn't be right for just one member of the family to pay for it. And of course we agree that... the funeral should be special." Without warning, Mrs Weasley also began to sob, and threw her arms around her daughter in law and they cried together.
It was too much for Harry. The guilt that had been building up over the past few days hit a peak, and he could no longer handle it. He flung open the back door and sprinted out, ignoring the calls of "Harry!" from the Weasleys. He ran through the garden and the orchard, to the old crumbling broom shed. The rusted hinges protested noisily as he wrenched the door open. He almost expected to see his Firebolt sitting among the Weasley's Cleansweeps, before remembering losing it last summer. Instead, he grabbed Ron's Cleansweep Eleven. Backing out again, he swung a leg over the broom, and kicked off, rocketing into the cloudless sky. The feel of the wind on his face, and the almost instance response of the broom to every movement to turn, dive, soar, was exhilarating, but the tearing feeling in his chest was not healed, only left to split him apart as his thoughts wandered to other things. He looped through the sky, and skimmed through the orchard, weaving in and out of the trees, before shooting back upwards, like a bullet.
"Harry!" A voice yelled from somewhere behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see a flash of red hair, and sped up, flat against the broom, trying to outstrip his pursuer.
"Harry!" The voice called again. "I have no chance of catching you up on a Cleansweep Five, so please just come down before I hex you off that broom!" It was George. Harry almost fell off his broom with shock. George had barely said a word since...
Reluctantly, he dipped his broom downwards, and landed gently on the damp grass. George landed a moment later, his expression unreadable.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
"Flying," Harry shrugged, fighting off the clawing feeling that had returned, tearing at his heart.
"You ran out of the house." George stated, face blank.
"I-" But Harry didn't know what to say.
"Spit it out, Harry." He was glaring now, suddenly angry.
"It's my fault!" Harry roared. George looked furious. "If I had just gone out there, Fred wouldn't be dead! He's dead because of me, and your family just lets me stay in your house, like all this pain you're going through isn't because of m-" Harry stumbled backwards from the blow to his jaw. "What was that fo-" George hit him again and he tripped over, reeling from shock.
"We're alive because of you." George snarled, "And if you think any different than that, then you're an idiot." He turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Harry staring after him, holding a hand to his bloody lip.
He walked into the kitchen of the Burrow to find Ron, Hermione and Ginny sat around the table. Ginny stood up as he entered.
"There you are- oh! What happened to you?" She cried, catching sight of his split lip.
"Uh, haven't flown in a while," He mumbled his rather lame excuse. None of them seemed convinced, but didn't say anything.
"Why did you-" Ron started to ask, but Hermione cut him off with a glare that Harry was sure could have burnt a hole in something. Harry walked over and took a seat next to Ginny.
"I've been thinking; since Grimmauld Place has been secured, maybe I should move back there, you know, after the funeral..."
"Harry, it's fine having you here, it's no bother."
"Yeah, I know, but I'd like to give your family some space. You two could come too," He addressed Hermione and Ron. Ginny made a small coughing noise. "Well, you can too, Gin', but you probably wouldn't be able to stay; you're not seventeen yet, and I'm sure your Mum would object to it." She scowled.
"That sounds okay," said Hermione, "I would be nice to have space again. It's so weird having peopled around again, after all these months..." Ron and Harry nodded in agreement.
"We'd need to clean it. It'd be like the summer before fifth year all over again." He warned.
"We can use magic this time." Ron reminded him.
"That's true. And I think we should brighten it up. You know, change the colour scheme and such. And I was thinking... Maybe Kreacher will be able to remove Mrs Black's portrait, and the tapestry, if house-elves' magic is different from ours."
"I don't think he'll like that," Hermione began.
"Well, I was going to give him Regulus's room, and say he could keep all that stuff in there..."
Hermione beamed. "Harry, that's a great idea!"
"So when do we break it to Mum?" Ron asked.
"Well, if the funeral is in two days, then I suggest...tonight."
"Tonight? She'll freak!"
"She would freak at any time, the sooner we tell her, the better."
"I guess."
"Right then, we'll tell her at dinner."
The four sat chatting for the next while, before climbing the stairs to their rooms, to begin packing.
It was a surprisingly warm night, so Mrs Weasley decided that they would eat outside. As Bill and Charlie set up tables in the garden, Harry watched from a distance, sitting on the lawn, remembering that summer all those years ago, when the two brothers staged a war between the tables, ending with one losing a leg, and an extremely irate Percy yelling out of his bedroom window.
Half an hour later they were all sat together around the tables talking good naturedly about the changes at the ministry that were going on; Kingsley was doing a good job, despite only having been in power for four days. The conversation came to a close, a Harry seized his chance.
"Err, Mrs Weasley?"
"Yes, dear?"
"I was thinking about going to Grimmauld place, now that it's been checked."
"Tonight?" Mrs Weasley looked taken aback.
"No, no, not tonight. In a couple of days, maybe."
"I guess that's okay... But you do know it's just fine for you to stay, dear, don't you?"
"Yes, of course Mrs Weasley, it'd just be nice to have my own space."
"I suppose..." She seemed reluctant to let him go.
"Uh, Mum?" Mrs Weasley looked inquisitively at Ron.
"Hermione and I were going to go with Harry."
"Really? I don't think-"
"Mum, I'm of age, and have been for over a year now. I can leave if I want to." She didn't look happy.
"Ronald, we'll talk about this later, okay?" Ron nodded nervously. And the discussion ended, and turned back to lighter subjects, as Charlie started telling stories about the horrors of working with dragons. There was much laughter as he recounted tales about a particularly vicious Peruvian Vipertooth with the rather peculiar name of Vicky. For the first time in years, Harry felt as though some normality was finally returning.