Sixteen: Always

Their walk back to the village was shrouded in silence. Seeing Sirius had been like holding up a terrifying mirror of what would be left for Ginny if they lost this war. She vowed to return to the Room of Requirement later that night, to practice some more. She needed to be stronger to keep her loved ones safe. It was that or turn out like Sirius, left behind by the dead.

Maybe Tori was having similar thoughts, or maybe she was still haunted by the sight of the man in the cave. Regardless, she only spoke when they were back in Hogsmeade itself, back under the watchful eyes of the Aurors and amidst the Hogwarts students racing from Honeydukes to Zonko's.

"Shall we go get a Butterbeer? The cold is killing me," Astoria said, raising her hands for Ginny to inspect. They did look rather blue.

"You should wear mittens," Ginny said, showing her own in return, safely covered in mum's handknitted red and gold mittens.

"Sorry, mittens aren't very Slytherin. And I may have forgotten my gloves at the castle," Astoria admitted as they walked into the Three Broomsticks.

There at least it still felt like the Hogsmeade of old, the place cramped with students huddled around tables, telling wild tales or trying to convince Rosmerta that they were old enough for firewhisky. The warmth washed over Ginny and a tingle ran from the tips of her fingers through the rest of her body. She recognised quite a few D.A. members and though Dean and Seamus hailed them, she shook her head in friendly denial. Instead, she headed for one of the few tables at the back that were still empty.

"Such chaos," Astoria complained as she dropped down on a chair and rubbed her hands together, wincing. "I always pictured the Gryffindor common room something like this."

"I'm already getting a headache," Astoria continued, pinching her nose bridge.

"It's this or the cold," Ginny said. "A butterbeer?" she asked.

"Yes please," Astoria said.

The crowd was so thick it almost made Ginny miss the early days of September when people parted before her, as if afraid her scars were infectious. At least they were still enough to shut up anyone offended by her squeezing past. Rosmerta, however, didn't flinch and just handed her two mugs of butterbeers, telling her to keep her money.

"Rosmerta's treat," Ginny explained as she waved off Astoria's attempts to pay her back. "I'd have refused but honestly, pride's overrated. Must be your Slytherin side rubbing off on me."

"To progress in that case," Astoria said, their two mugs meeting with a soft cling. "Heard anything from Dumbledore yet?"

"Yeah, he wants to meet me again at the end of next week."

"And do you know what he wants?" Astoria asked.

"No idea," she admitted, turning the mug between her hands. "Unless he wants to play my therapist, I can't see why he'd want to talk with me. I've hardly spoken to him since the end of my first year."

"Maybe it's about what happened at the Department?" Astoria asked.

"Maybe. Or maybe he heard about Sirius. Should I tell him about it?"

"I don't think it matters. He'll be long gone by then anyway. He reeked of paranoia," she said. "I do hope not everyone on your side's like that."

"Don't you mean our side?," Ginny asked

"I'm on your side, Ginny. That doesn't mean I'm on everyone's side. Or that they are on my side. I doubt they'd invited us over if I'd entered here alone," Astoria said with a wave at the table of Dean and Seamus. "But don't worry, I'm definitely not on You-Know-Who's side."

"I know. How are things in Slytherin? They still haven't given you any flak about that?"

"No, not even Nott. I think you scared them off. He's been so skittish." Ginny felt an odd mix of horror and pride. She'd humbled them, the proud Purebloods.

"How's your sister taking it?"

"We're not talking much. But that's hardly different from before," Astoria reassured her. "Daphne's always considered me a bit of an embarrassment. This is just the latest way to get under her skin."

"And your parents?" Ginny asked, thinking of the serious-looking people so different from her own parents that Astoria had shown her in a photograph.

"Guess we'll find out at Christmas. You featured in my letters though, and I haven't gotten any Howlers yet, so I'm cautiously optimistic. I suspect Daphne told them you hexed Nott and that probably earned you a few points. Mum hates his mother," she said with an impish grin. "She once made a pass at dad from what I've heard."

"But didn't they want you-"

"To make friends with the Junior Death Eaters? Yes, but they know better than to insist. We have a reputation for being stubborn. Besides, I doubt they mind me and Daphne each playing a different side. That gives them options, and dad loves options." Astoria gave a long-suffering sigh. "You know what the other Purebloods call him behind his back? Flip Flop Greengrass. Because his name's Philip and that's apparently the extent of their wit."

"Still better than what they call my dad."

"At least ours aren't in Azkaban," Astoria said, eying Crabbe and Goyle who had just entered. "Or dead."

Neville's still gasping for air when they notice Crabbe Senior isn't moving. Harry keeps his wand trained on the Death Eater, but he stays down.

"Quite the Knockback Jinx," Ron says, clapping Harry on the back.

"Yeah," Harry says hesitatingly. "Let's go."

"It was an accident, you know," Ginny said.

"Sorry?"

"Crabbe's father. He was hurting Neville and someone threw him off him with a Knockback Jinx. Only, he landed wrong and broke his neck. I'm not sure if anyone of us even knew he was dead then. I sure as hell didn't," she admitted.

Truth be told, Ginny hadn't believed it when she found out during the summer either. Moody had wanted to know what had happened. She'd just been able to gape when it dawned on her that he meant Crabbe had died during the battle. With much humming and hemming, she'd told him she didn't know what had happened, earning her the full attention of both his eyes. She was quite sure he knew she was lying, but she wasn't going to accuse Harry, who'd never wanted to hurt anyone. If that meant Moody thought she'd killed Crabbe, so be it. It wasn't as if anyone would pay any attention to his crackpot theories.

"Did you kill him?" Astoria asked softly.

"No," Ginny said, shaking her head. "It was someone else."

"Hmm," Astoria said, looking pensive as she sipped from her Butterbeer. "Daphne told me about the funeral. His wife delivered a rather beautiful eulogy. And by that, I mean she managed to say nothing about the circumstances of his death or his extracurricular activities."

"Has he talked about it?" Ginny looked at Crabbe as he moved towards the bar.

"Not as far as I know. All I know is, suddenly the seventh years treated him with more respect. Guess his dad's a war hero from their point of view."

"Huh," she said, never having considered that to them, Crabbe would be just like Harry and her friends. "Is that why Malfoy isn't with them, jealous of the fame?"

"He's got detention with McGonagall. Failed to hand in an essay or something. He was complaining about it yesterday."

"First time I heard about him getting detention," Ginny said, confident Ron would have gloated about it before. But apart from that one trek into the Forbidden forest, he'd always seemed to know just how to toe the line.

"Malfoy's been odd this year. More quiet. More brooding. Then again, who wouldn't be in his place? It was always 'my father this', 'my father that' and suddenly, his father's in Azkaban for murder. Hard to brag then."

"I'd thought he'd brag more, honestly," Ginny spat, studying the grooves and the carvings in the table. "Finally, his father managed to do what he'd always wanted to. Kill a Weasley."

"I wonder if that isn't it. Malfoy's always acted tough, but maybe he finally realised what that means. They were in his year too, you know."

"I doubt he cared very much for that. He hated them. All of them," she said, remembering all the awful things he'd done. All the times he'd mocked Harry, Ron and Hermione, with accusations ranging from 'Potter stinks' to 'Mudblood'.

"I don't claim he didn't. But did he really want them dead? It's easy to think you do at our age. But when it happens…" Astoria said, voice trailing off. Her tone and the dead look in her eyes told Ginny this was more than idle speculation.

"Who did you want dead?" she asked gently. Astoria averted her eyes.

"I'd… I'd rather not talk about that. Just trust me when I say that maybe Malfoy got dealt more cards than he wanted and is trying to make sense of it all. Either that, or he's planning something even worse."

"Do you think that's what's happening?" Ginny asked.

It was a lot easier to believe that Malfoy was involved with some grand scheme, maybe even under the supervision of a Death Eater, than that he hadn't wanted them dead. That he too had been horrified at what had happened inside the Department of Mysteries. Still, maybe even for him, that had been too much for a schoolyard feud. The usual venom had been missing the rare times that their gazes crossed.

"I don't know, Ginny. There's so much moving and shifting inside Slytherin, it's difficult to tell bluster from bold ambition. I can hardly figure out my own sister, let alone the rest. It's no longer quite as easy as before."

"I wonder what they'd make from it, if they were still here," Ginny mused.

"They'd probably be in the middle of it and horribly in trouble," Astoria said and Ginny choked out a short laugh.

"That does sound like them," she said fondly. "I'm quite sure Harry would be obsessing over Malfoy, thinking he'd be involved with some kind of plot. He could have an infuriatingly one-track mind."

"You loved him, didn't you?" Astoria asked.

Ginny's eyes flashed left and right, but their table sat alone in a sea of chaos, the hubbub stopping even the most dedicated of eavesdroppers. No one could hear her here, and still she hesitated. But in Astoria's green eyes, she saw herself reflected and the truth was already there, plain for the world to see.

"Yeah." She told herself she wouldn't cry here, not in the Three Broomsticks.

"For how long?"

"Always," she admitted. "As a child, I loved the idea of him. And then he saved me in the Chamber and I loved the hero he'd become. And then I got to know the boy behind the legend, and I loved him even more."

It was difficult not to think about how silly she'd been back then. Just a starry-eyed girl who didn't know anything about the world, or Harry Potter. If Hermione hadn't taken her aside one day, she'd still have been running after him like an adoring fan. She wondered if her plan would have worked, if they'd only had a bit more time. When she thought of his last smile, she liked to think it would have.

"That's why Sirius hit you so hard. Harry loved him as well," Astoria said.

"Yeah. That's why we were at the Department of Mysteries. Did I ever tell that part?" Astoria shook her head. "Voldemort had sent Harry a vision of Sirius being tortured there. And when we couldn't reach him through the Floo, we set out to save him. Only he wasn't there. Just Death Eaters and the trap we walked straight into," Ginny said, tracing the symbols carved into the wood with her finger. She wondered what had gone through people's minds when they did that. Her finger stopped when it reached a Dark Mark.

"That's why they all died in the end. Because we wanted to save Sirius. And now that he really needs saving, I can't do it. And that just makes me feel like I failed Harry. Again."

"You didn't fail him, Ginny. I told you, some people don't want to be saved."

"That wouldn't have stopped Harry. Saving people was his thing," Ginny muttered. Tori took her hand and squeezed it.

"And even he couldn't save everyone."

A/N: No update next week, apologies. I'll be enjoying distant lands without a laptop around