The End is never the same as the beginning

AnOrc

Ginny stared out the window of Gryffindor tower.

There really was, she was sure, no chance of Harry coming back, his glasses glinting, his hair a mess. But. Her stupid heart kept hoping that her personal her would, could have somehow survived.

She turned on her heel and walked quickly to the girls stairs. She was going to look, to stand where he'd stood, and she knew that he wasn't going to be there but. She wiped her sleeve across her eyes; she was going out there, and that was that.

Her cloak would probably be ruined, she thought, as she did the clasp up. But it didn't matter anyway. She put on her Gryffindor scarf… if there was anything to be proud of, not so sob yourself to sleep, it was the bravery of Harry taking on every Death Eater, the entire army, all at once.

The main doors were still kept shut, but Ginny slipped out the wicket gate. There was ash everywhere. Ginny quickly had to move her scarf to cover her mouth, the drifting ash was not 'dampng down and going away' like the Ministry spokesperson in the Daily Prophet had said. She headed down the slope towards the rolling hills of grey wood-ash that were all that was left of the forbidden forest. There was no sign of Hagrid's hut. The blast wave must have knocked it to splinters.

Once Ginny had been walking in the rolling ash piles for a while, she started to spot the occasional burnt, twisted stump. The fire couldn't have been that intense out here at the periphery of the forest.

Ginny looked up and above everything, muting the sun, were drifting flecks of black ash. They'd come as far as the castle, the day it happened. Ginny squeezed her eyes shut, and imagined a still pond. The one at the burrow she learnt to swim in. It was not… no it wasn't fine.

Ginny opened her eyes and started off once again, into the centre of the desolation. Evert step she took, clouds of wood-ash billowed.

As she got closer and closer, the ground got more and more even, less and less, finally no tree-stumps.

Ginny stood on tip-toes trying to see farther. Where she was was proably as good as any place.

"I miss you" said Ginny. And she sniffled. Her scarf was getting soggy now, bloody brilliant.

"I… I loved you, you … you prat" she said to the breeze, the drifting ash.

After a while, standing, staring at the ashes, feeling like her heart would never beat again, she said "I miss you."

She looked up, and Harry was standing just a yard away, looking half-starved, his glasses askew, his hair an insult to birds nests, his clothes… the same clothes he'd been wearing that day a month ago now, when he'd stopped out of the portrait door in the room of requirement, looking intently focused till he saw her, and smiled, tentatively. It had, Ginny remembered, been a rubbish kiss. Just a second, just… not bloody much really. And he gave her a tiny, confused looking smile.

Ginny might have apparated the yard or two, and jumped up, wrapping his head in her arms, holding onto his waist with her legs, and snogging him harder than she'd ever kissed before. Harry stood there a bit gormlessly, like he'd never got good at kissing – which was a total lie; he'd got good by the time he arrogantly decided they were breaking up 'to protect her' whiel he went off and did Merlin knew what.

Harry arm wrapped round her back and then finally, his other arm held her thigh so she wouldn't slip off.

Ginny broke off the kiss and stared him in the eyes "Don't do that again" she said. Harry nodded mutely.

"Well, say something?" said Ginny.

Harry opened his mouth and out came a wave of black, burning ash.