Cicatrix: new tissue that forms over a wound.

May 9, 1999

Harry gently ran the pad of his thumb along the white crescent mark fading along Ginny's jaw.

"On the marble staircase," she murmured, pushing him backward onto soft new grass. Sunlight glowed in a fiery halo through her loose hair. "I didn't see who."

She turned his arm to expose the soft, smooth underside, touching the warped, blackened skin where Nagini's fangs had sunk into him.

"Godric's Hollow," he told her. "Voldemort's snake." He heard her sharp intake of breath, but she didn't ask.

He reached down to cup his hand around her bare calf, looking at the bright pink ribbon that spiraled from ankle to knee.

"The forest. Poisonous tree root," she grimaced.

Harry pulled her half on top of him, her weight pressing him into the soft, sweet-smelling earth. She hooked a finger under the collar of his shirt, pulling it down to expose a bit of angry scarlet. Harry's hands came up on either side of hers, undoing the buttons. She wove her hands between his, helping until she could pull his shirt open. She stared at the puckered, deep red oval burned over his heart as if blood were seeping through, the fading yellow and green of a year-old bruise that had darkened his chest from his collarbone to the bottom of his ribcage. He pressed her palm against the scarlet oval so that she could feel the thrust of his heartbeat. She brought her other hand up to trace the letters still carved white as bone into the back of his hand: I must not tell lies.

"What happened in the forest?" she whispered.

She felt him wrap an arm around her waist, squeeze her close. "I saw the place where people go On."

"I don't understand."

He kissed her forehead. "A long, long time from now, you will."

"Did you die?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you do it?"

"Because I had to. There was no other way."

She tucked her head under his chin, and for a time they were silent. Then she felt his fingers trailing across her shoulder blades.

"The Paddock when I was ten. Fell off Ron's old broom into the gravel, and of course I couldn't let Mum find out what I'd been doing, so I never had her heal it."

Harry showed her the heels of his hands where jagged white lines ran like cracked glass, almost too light to see. "My aunt and uncle's staircase when I was eight. Got the bright idea to try to toboggan down it while my aunt ran to the store. Smashed into a lamp on the side table." He smirked as Ginny winced. "Had to get stitches on this one," he remembered, pointing to a line that reached almost to his index finger.

Ginny closed her eyes, looking faintly sick, and he chuckled and pulled her back against his chest. They fit like that, hot skin on hot skin. The scars were still there, but they didn't hurt anymore.

A/N: I am boldly attempting to finish May before the end of this May. Hope to hear from you! Love you all.