Heart, We Will Forget Him Chapter 5 - Christmas, a harry potter fanfic

Chapter 5 - Christmas Morning

I know. I'm a TERRIBLE person! I haven't updated this story in so long. I know it sounds odd but I sort of 'lost' one of the characters for a while….as you will see in the following chapter, and I wasn't sure where they went. But I've found them now, so hopefully they stay with me as I keep pushing ahead with the story.

This story remains un-beta-ed, so if there are any mistakes then I apologise.

Again, please send in your reviews. I have no idea whether people like my story unless you say you do, and I think any author can agree that reviews are a good motivator….so if you want me to keep writing then I suggest you dangle that carrot!

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Ginny opened her eyes slowly, enjoying the luxury of being able to wake up without the rustle of the other girls in the dormitory as they hurried about their morning routines.

She stretched, reaching as far as she could up the bed and as far down as her toes would allow. One of the best parts of being the last child to attend school was that her mother was treating her like royalty during vacation. She had been allowed to sleep in every morning, had been treated to all her favourite foods, and her mother had even ignored (albeit with a raised eyebrow) most of the sharp-edged words she inevitably let slip when her temper started in on any of her brothers.

And now it was Christmas.

Christmas day in the Weasley household traditionally consisted of an early morning wake-up prank courtesy of the twins, followed by hungry mouths gulping down breakfast before showing their empty tongues to their mother. Molly Weasley would check that everybody was sufficed with empty mouths and then, only then, would they be allowed into the lounge with the presents.

It was an ingenious ploy on the part of the Weasley matriarch. With seven children Christmas had always been a rather hectic affair, and any pretence of order within the family would be lost as soon as the first wrapping was torn. As such, she had long ago established the unwritten rules of Christmas day, including ensuring all children had at least one meal sans sweets in the morning.

This year, Ginny knew, would be different.

There would be no pranks to wake her up this morning. It was debatable as to whether the remaining Weasley twin would even show his face for the day, and Ginny didn't blame him. The loss of Fred was still heavy in her heart, and every day she was faced with reminders of her brother, whether it was a particular turn of phrase she heard or even if it was a joke that she tucked away to remember to tell the pair when she next saw them.

She had always hated the way her brothers would wake her up early. Even if it was Christmas, nobody wants to wake to a bucket of green slime ready to tip, or to the soft licks of a smelly old sheep with a Santa hat on their pillow.

But now, looking back, Ginny wished for nothing more than to have those moments again. Nothing more than to be able to yell and scream at the twins as they pulled faces at each other and pretended to be deaf.

It was funny the things you only missed when they were gone.

Ginny rubbed the sleep from her eyes, not wanting to dwell on such sad memories any longer. Her fingers brushed the hair from her eyes as she checked the window to see if any snow had landed overnight. Winter at the Burrow could be truly magical, in every sense of the word. Some winters her father animated the snowmen that she created with her brothers, and they would have snowball fights against the snow-army long after the sun had set in the evening.

The snow outside was fresh, powder laced her window sill and she grinned with delight before jumping out of bed.

It was Christmas!

Ginny raced down the stairs, ignoring Hermione's indignant huff as she barrelled past the brunette almost knocking her down on her way.

She raced to the front door, hopping the last few metres as she tugged on her wellies and, finally, banging the door loudly open to let the cold winter air flow past her.

It was a moment she relished every year, immersing herself in the first Christmas snow.

She ran outside and around into the back garden, making her way to the snow-covered grass. The snow was so deep here that it was almost impossible to walk through, but Ginny trudged through determined to keep this one Christmas ritual alive, even if nothing else remained the same.

Finally, making it to a small rise in the landscape she leapt, flipping herself midway through her jump. She landed on her back, sinking into the deep snow layer. Ginny couldn't keep the grin from her face as she felt the icy cushion around her, and she stretched her arms as far as she could before flapping them like an angel.

Her Christmas snow angel.

Every year Ginny did this. Made a Christmas snow angel in the Christmas snow. It was a constant, and a reminder that not everything was tinged with darkness, no matter how it might seem later in the day. She would be able to look outside the window and see her snow angel on the small hill.

After feeling like she had made enough of an imprint Ginny gingerly got to her feet, careful to not disturb the impression of an angel below her.

She grinned as she looked down at it, before quickly realising just how cold she was now that she was drenched in icy water. She shivered, the cold quickly seeping its way through to her bones.

Ginny shivered again, making her way back to the house where she knew her brothers would have left the bathroom free for her, well aware of her Christmas morning tradition and equally as aware of what Ginny would do to them if they didn't let her have the first hot water of the day to soak away the icy coolness of the snow.

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Ron sighed and rolled over. The warm body beside him shuffled a little before settling down once again into his arms. He smiled into the head of hair, escaped hairs from the plaits Hermione had worn to bed tickled his nose and Ron grinned despite himself.

It was Christmas morning.

He was in Hermione's bed.

There was a part of Ron that wanted to stay here forever, wanted to lie back down next to his girlfriend, let her rest her head on his chest, and let the world outside fade away. Sometimes he felt exactly that, as if the world outside really had faded away. Sometimes when he was with Hermione it felt as if nothing outside their little bubble of happiness existed.

But there was an even larger part of Ron that knew if his mother was to find them in bed together there would be hell to pay. In fact, Ron didn't even want to imagine the tirade his mother would unleash if she walked into Hermione's room at that moment. It was pretty obvious that they had spent the night together, and more obvious was the fact that neither was wearing pyjamas.

He grinned again, a giant, cheesy grin that he knew Harry would tease him mercilessly about if he were to ever see it.

And as quickly as the grin had formed Ron felt it fall of his face in an instant.

Maybe the Harry he had once known would have teased him about his goofy grin, but the Harry he knew now would probably not even notice that Ron was even in the same room.

And today was Christmas. Ron had invited Harry to the Weasley Christmas lunch, had threatened and cajoled in equal turns. But Ron had a very strong suspicion that the other wizard would never make an appearance today. He shuddered to think what Harry might actually be getting up to. It was a toss up between whether Harry would sit at home in the dark of Grimmauld Place drinking the day away, or whether he would go out to some muggle nightclub and let himself drown amongst a mixture of seedy characters.

Ron sighed heavily. No matter what way you looked at it, Harry was on a downhill slope, and Ron really didn't want to see where rock-bottom would be for his best mate.

Hermione made a small sound and buried her face in her pillow. Ron smiled, brushing the hair from her neck as he left a kiss on her shoulder before climbing out of bed and finding his discarded pyjama bottoms.

He nudged the door open ever so slightly, peering around the corner for any sign of his parents. The hallway was clear and Ron made a speedy escape up the staircase, past his sisters room and towards his own bedroom. He was extra-cautious around the creaky third step, knowing that if he was caught now then the game was over.

He made it to his room in one piece, slipping inside the door before climbing back into bed. Just because he had to get up early to sneak out of his girlfriend's bedroom didn't mean he couldn't sleep in.

Even if it was Christmas.

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Hermione opened her eyes blearily as she took in her surroundings. The sheets beside her were still slightly warm, so she suspected it hadn't been long since Ron had made his morning exit.

She smiled, allowing herself the girlish pleasure of curling her toes at the memory of last night.

She loved having a boyfriend!

She sighed and turned onto her stomach, stretching out between the sheets before letting her brain start its' ticking for the day. It was Christmas.

It was Christmas!

It was hard to believe that an entire year had passed since that last horrendous Christmas at Godric's Hollow. So much had happened since then. The war had been won. Voldemort had been defeated. She and Ron had (finally!) gotten together.

Harry had been slowly self-destructing.

She sighed, and rolled over once more so that she was staring at the ceiling. She allowed herself several minutes to wallow on the problem of her best friend. She wasn't at all sure how to tackle him. After the war, after she had brought her parents back from Australia, Hermione had gone straight to the bookstore in Muggle London and stocked up on books about post-war psychology and post-traumatic stress disorder. She knew she would probably experience her own psychological trauma after everything that had happened to her and she had been determined to be prepared.

Surprisingly, aside from a few nightmares, she hadn't experienced too many of the symptoms she had read about.

Harry, however…

She sighed again as she started getting up from bed, pulling on her slippers from beneath the nearby cupboard. Harry was a mess. She wasn't even sure how things had gotten to their current state.

She knew Ron visited Harry daily, and she herself tried to visit him at Grimmauld Place several times per week. But each time she would turn up, biting her tongue at the empty bottles of alcohol scattered around the place, determined to refrain from mentioning the many things she was reading about him in the daily papers.

Oh Harry!

Every day brought new stories, new side comments in the editorials that made mention of the scandals he was repeatedly getting himself into. Last week he had been spotted drinking with a group of scantily clad part-Veela women….Hermione didn't need to read to article to know what he had later been seen doing with them.

She had been worried at first that Harry would sink into a depression. He certainly had a history of lapsing into week-long broody silences. Instead he seemed to have developed a party-lifestyle that her books referred to as 'reckless behaviour'. And it was. There was a part of Hermione that still lived in the midst of war, and she couldn't help but fear for her friend should he be caught in a drunken stupor by one of the many Death Eaters still on the loose.

She had mentioned this to him once a few weeks ago. In response he had shut the door in her face.

She sighed again, tightening the dressing-gown sash around her waist.

Later today she would be floo-ing to her parents house to pick them up and bring them back to the Burrow for Christmas. Her relationship was still rocky with her parents, and she was trying to spend as much time as she could with them. Even so, there was an underlying element of distrust in their eyes whenever they spoke to her, and she knew she had planted a seed within them that darkened their view of her magical world.

This morning however, she was determined to make her way over to Grimmauld Place and haul Harry back to the Burrow no matter what. She knew Ron would likely sleep for several more hours, and she thought that ideally she should head over to Harry's now before Ron woke up, as Harry had a way of provoking Ron into a temper when he wanted to, and Hermione considered herself the more level-headed one of the trio.

She found herself some jeans and a jumper to wear and quietly made her way down the stairs

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It was freezing out in the street outside Grimmauld Place. Hermione wrapped herself tightly in her scarf, breathing into it to warm up her face. Snow lined the pavement, and Hermione smiled to see a small snowman that had obviously been built by the owner of the red tricycle in the front yard next to Harry's place. It was a lovely little street, she thought to herself as she looked around her as the two story house appeared in front of her.

Sirius' old house-elf, Kretcher, had certainly improved the outward appearance of Grimmauld Place since Harry had helped him come to terms with his old master's death. No longer were cobwebs stranding the outside pillars, and Hermione couldn't help but be thankful that the old crusty house-elf was there for Harry when he wouldn't allow anyone else to be.

She quickly reached into her shoulder bag to fetch the Christmas hat she had brought with her, hoping to fetch a grin onto her friend's face at her antics. She pulled it over her bushy hair as she rang the doorbell.

There was silence behind the door. She waited, counting silently up to sixty before ringing it again.

Once again no sound of life came from behind the door, and instantly her hackles rose, she found herself automatically back into war-mode as she rang the doorbell for a third time, this time keeping her eyes sharp for any movement around her.

No sound came from the house, and she decided that it was logical she should use her spare key to enter. She quickly opened the door to find the hallway empty and quiet.

Hermione pulled out her wand, cursing herself under her breath for deciding to fetch Harry alone. She should have brought Ron with her.

With that thought she quickly summoned her patronus, whispering a quick message to Ron for the otter to relay before sending it on its way.

Her breath came in small puffs of steam as she made her way slowly up the hallway, trying to keep quiet and keeping an ear out for any sounds from within the house.

It was silent.

She rounded the corner into the main living room, but there were no lights on and no fire within the fireplace that might suggest somebody was home. She quickly passed through the rooms to find Harry's…his bed was still made and had obviously not been slept in.

A sound behind her made her start, she jumped and pulled out her wand aiming it towards the noise. She found herself holding her wand at the forehead of Kretcher and quickly lowered it.

Kretcher cowered beneath her, muttering in the low grumbling tone that always unnerved her (it didn't help that when she first met him he had constantly called her 'mudblood' under his breath).

"Kretcher, did Harry come home last night?" she asked the elf, worried that perhaps Harry hadn't been seen since the previous day.

"No Miss. Master Harry hasn't been home since Tuesday" he told her, still cowering at her feet.

"Tuesday?" she repeated, her voice rising in pitch. "And you didn't think to tell anyone?" she demanded of the elf, angry that her friend had potentially been missing for two nights without her knowledge.

There were a myriad of possibilities for where Harry could be. She knew she should treat the situation logically, and that the most likely scenario was that Harry had (unsurprisingly) gotten drunk with one of his Auror buddies and had spent the nights at their place. However, her mind instantly began to summon images of Harry captured, imprisoned by deranged Death Eaters intent on revenge. Images of Harry trapped in dungeons like that of Malfoy Manor.

Hermione's breath hitched as she tried to brush away the imaginings.

It wasn't long before she heard footsteps running down the hallway, Ron barging into the room with his wand drawn, still in his pyjamas with a windcheater thrown over his shoulders, hair mussed to signify his newly-wakened state. His eyes were wide and he was panting heavily.

Hermione was incredibly glad to see him.

"Ron! Harry's not here!" Hermione was beginning to feel frantic at the possible reasons why Harry might not be at home.

Ron looked around, confusion evident on his face which was both a mixture of the early-morning confused look he usually wore in the mornings as well as an underlying element of fear as the possibilities Harry's whereabouts began to dawn on him.

"It's probably nothing to get too worried about Hermione. You know how he's been lately" Ron said in a voice that suggested he was trying to reassure himself as much as his girlfriend.

"Probably" nodded Hermione, who couldn't help the palpitations in her chest or the way her breath was slightly hitching at each intake. She could tell she was on the verge of panic, and she forced herself to take several deep long breaths to calm herself.

"Does Kretcher know where he is?" asked Ron, looking around for the mangy house-elf.

"Harry hasn't been since Tuesday….Ron, That's two days ago!" said Hermione.

Ron nodded, still getting his bearings while standing armed and ready in the centre of the room.

"Right…right" he nodded, and Hermione watched as Ron's brain began ticking again. He had always been the better of the two when it came to making proper game-plans, it was why the three of them had always been such a good force, because they all knew each others strengths and weaknesses, and they knew how to use them.

"Right. Its probably nothing, but it might be something. So Hermione, you stay here at Grimmauld Place and give it a good once-over to make sure he hasn't, like, passed out in an alcoholic stupor and gotten stuck down a drain or up the chimney or something. I'll head back to the Burrow and get some of the others and we'll do a round of the pubs and the Auror guys to see if he's been crashing on anyone's couches. Then we'll meet back in an hour at the Burrow, okay? Send your patronus if you find him, or if you run into trouble." said Ron, sounding much surer than he actually felt.

Hermione nodded, glad to have a plan to follow. She went to give Ron a quick peck on the cheek, but Ron turned instead and caught her in his arms and gave her a longer kiss than she had originally intended.

"I'm sure he's fine 'Mione. He's just trying to scrooge his way out of Christmas" Ron said, holding her tight and giving a final kiss to her forehead.

Hermione nodded and gave him one last squeeze before setting off to search the manor.

Ron turned back towards the fireplace.

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It didn't take long for Ron to gather together Bill, Fleur and Charlie. Bill and Charlie had arrived for the Christmas celebrations and Ron quickly related their Harry problem. Fleur had demanded to be involved in the search party, and Ron (who was still somewhat tongue-tied when the part-Veela started to become emotional) left it up to Bill whether she should help in the search.

They quickly agreed to keep the news from their parents, from George and also from Ginny – although Ginny was soon found eaves-dropping out in the hallway and demanded to be involved as well.

In the end there were the five of them from the Burrow, in addition to Hermione who was still at Grimmauld Place, and they designated various friends to be doorknocked in the search for Harry.

Ron agreed to go back to Grimmauld Place to let Hermione know of the developments, and he would subsequently coordinate the search from there. Ginny teamed up with Charlie whilst Bill and Fleur were automatically considered a pair for obvious reasons.

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Ginny waved a goodbye to a very red-faced Neville who was spending his Christmas at Hannah Abbott's house in Nottingham (much to Ginny's surprise). She grinned and blew him a kiss as he started to close the door, and she laughed when he rolled his eyes.

She and Neville had been through a lot together, and she was glad to see he was moving on with his life. She remembered him spending quite a bit of time with Hannah during the previous year, and Hannah had been one of the more capable students in the DA and had fought bravely alongside them all at the Battle of Hogwarts.

It was a good match, Ginny decided. If slightly out of the blue….she had always harboured a secret desire to see Neville matched up with Luna. She had always thought that her shy Yule Ball partner would be drawn out of his shell by her friend's crazy antics…but it seemed as if he hadn't needed a push at all! Good on him!

She linked arms with Charlie as they walked down the busy street towards an empty park from which they would Apparate to their next destination. She hadn't seen much of Charlie over the past couple of years. Not since he had left on his adventures overseas.

He was nine years older than her, so he had been well into his Hogwarts years by the time she was old enough to be more than just a brattish little sister.

Even so, she had always adored Charlie. Both he and Bill had always doted upon her when she was a little girl, sending her letters from Hogwarts back when she had been so jealous at being left behind, spending hours with her planning revenge on the twins' pranks or hiding her from her mother when she was in trouble.

Charlie obviously noticed her thoughtful silence and gave her a friendly nudge as they walked along the little road. Ginny grinned up at him, once again eternally grateful that she had the family she had. Especially at this time of year.

And with that thought it suddenly hit Ginny where Harry might be.

Christmas was a time for family. Harry would probably be with his.

She stopped walking, and it took Charlie several steps before he realised that Ginny had come to a halt. He looked back at her, suddenly alert, wand drawn and stance ready as he glanced around their surroundings trying to identify what had caused the sudden stop.

"Charlie…where's Godric's Hollow?"

Charlie raised an eyebrow as he looked at Ginny, obviously trying to detect the meaning beneath her tone.

"South" he said, brow creasing into a frown as he connected the dots.

"You don't think…" he trailed off.

"It's a long shot I guess, but it's Christmas. Isn't that why you're back at the Burrow? To Spend time with family?" Ginny pointed out.

"Yeah, but…" Charlie found himself catching up with what Ginny was saying.

"Okay, hold tight Gin. I'm pretty sure I remember the place, it's been a while since I visited the Potter House."

Ginny grabbed Charlie's arm, hating the reminder that Harry's childhood home was obviously a tourist destination now. She herself had never been, but when she had been younger she had begged her parents to take her to Godric's Hollow to see where The-Boy-Who-Lived had lived. She internally cringed at her younger self's obsession with Harry.

She held her breath as Charlie turned, apparating them both to an area of England she had never visited but had often thought about.

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So that's it, folks. Bring on the carrots, mouldy or not!