Only two days after Ron and Hermione had left for Australia, Mrs. Weasley finally came out of her confinement. She slowly began to take over some of the household chores, which brought up mixed emotions in her daughter, who was, on the one hand, happy that her mother was out of her funk, but on the other, was regretting the loss of chores to keep her distracted.

Harry, though, was more than happy about the return of Molly Weasley. It meant that not only was he back to eating well - whatever her other attractive attributes, his girlfriend was not the most accomplished cook, not that he ever complained - but he was also getting to spend even more time with Ginny, whose only distraction now, to his amusement, was him. It seemed to him that Ginny now had the sole purpose of ticking off every adventure she could cook up with him in tow. He wondered if she wanted to make up for months of not being in a relationship. After all, before this summer, they had only dated for about five weeks, which had also presented them with very little time with each other, due to Ginny's O.W.L.s.

And so they wandered around the village of Ottery St. Catchpole, or ventured into Muggle London and saw the popular sights, and even managed to have their first Hogsmeade date, which ended up taking a rather sombre turn when they were both deeply affected by the sight of their school. Hogwarts was clearly under repair, but the castle still retained the scars of the battle and with those scars came back foul memories. Harry and Ginny quickly found their way back to the Burrow that day.

Amongst these mostly happy and cheerful dates, they also found time to enjoy the summer sun in the Burrow's orchard, which had quickly become their favourite spot, perhaps because it reminded them of a certain copse of trees near the Black Lake, where they had spent the first few weeks of their romance.

After a few more sunlit days, however, Harry could no longer avoid the knotted feeling of discomfort in his belly. He wanted to tell Ginny everything, and he wanted to know everything about her. Both of them were aware of the pain they were keeping from each other and it was weighing heavily like a suffocating blanket over their time together. So Harry took Hermione's advice, not that he would ever give her the satisfaction of knowing, and began to recount the last year to Ginny, a little bit every day that they spent in the orchard.

"So I was possessed by a bit of Voldemort's soul, which he had kept in the diary?"

Ginny's words were measured, but he knew just how much this information would affect her. He had himself been a Horcrux, after all. And as far as he knew, she was the only other person who had felt such an intense connection with a bit of Voldemort's soul. Harry didn't like to think about this morbid similarity he shared with Ginny. She was his sun, away from the dark; he didn't like to remember that she had experienced just as much darkness as him, at such a young age. Perhaps that was why he sometimes thought that she understood him better than anyone else he'd ever known. But he didn't like to address the shared trauma of Voldemort that existed between them.

"So I was talking to Riddle's soul, an actual part of him, not just a memory?"

Harry could now see some tears threatening to leak from Ginny's eyes. She still had a vacant sort of expression on her face but her fist was gripping the overgrown grass on which they were sitting so painfully that her knuckles turned white. Harry wasn't able to say much more that day but held onto Ginny fiercely when she eventually broke into sobs over his shoulder, drenching his shirt with her tears.

A few days later when Harry told her that he had himself been a Horcrux, it was Ginny's turn to console him. She held him to her waist as he half lay across her body and let a few tears escape his own eyes. He had never let himself be comforted like this with the touch of another person, but after several moments of Ginny's fingers possessively stroking his hair, he felt much lighter than he had in days, weeks, months, years.

The entire exchange of stories took more than a couple of days. Most days, they would stop when it got too much to bear and would spend the rest of the time silently snuggling into each other for comfort. Snuggling often escalated to comforting but urgent kisses and touches, and Harry found himself familiarising himself with Ginny in a way he had craved since they had begun dating more than a year ago. While Harry probably wanted to get carried away, he let Ginny set the pace, afraid to venture farther than she was comfortable with. So it was she who took his hands and placed them on her chest. While it was still over the shirt, Harry found himself unable to comprehend anything beyond the feel of her breasts in his hands, and within minutes, he sat up, flushing furiously from his face to his neck. Ginny had at least laughed that day.

When Ginny began recounting her tales of horror from Hogwarts under the Carrows, however, Harry couldn't hold back from anger seething within him. He had broken up with Ginny to keep her safe, but she had been so reckless, trying to steal Gryffindor's sword, reviving Dumbledore's Army with Neville, and taking more detentions than anyone else in her year.

Ginny took his jaw, which was set with anger, in her hand and turned his face to look at her.

"Harry, I would have experienced this whether or not I was dating you. I had as much of a right to this war as you. My family raised me to be a Weasley, after all." She tried to laugh it off half-heartedly but he just huffed in anger at her laugh. "Harry," she spoke in a placating but firm tone, "what did you want me to do? Let the Carrows use the Cruciatus Curse on the first and second years instead? It had to be done. We needed Dumbledore's Army. Isn't this why you taught us?"

"I didn't want you to get hurt. I wanted you to be safe, Ginny."

"And I wanted you to be safe! But I had to make my peace with the fact that you had to leave and try to kill the most dangerous wizard in the world, Harry. Do you know how I felt? I had to make peace with the fact that you might die!" Her eyes were swimming with tears again when she swatted his shoulder in frustration. "You DID die!" She added, with an accusation.

That put things in perspective for Harry. He wound his arms around her and pulled her to him. He stroked her hair tenderly and kissed her on any spot he could find - her neck, her cheek, the corner of her lips, her eyes, and her ear.

"This was war, Harry," she whispered against his chest. "Neither you nor me could help it. We fought our own battles, but we came out alive, even if with a few battle scars."

And that same day, he saw her battle scars.

During another passionate exchange, when Harry was finally getting comfortable boldly seeking out her breasts over her top, she pulled it off for him. He panicked slightly at first and glanced back at the house to see if they were in view, but found that they were blocked by a few blessed bushes and a rather dominating tree trunk. He focused his eyes back on Ginny and found himself looking at her simple purple bra. He had only seen female undergarments in the dirty magazines that were once passed around in his dormitory, but all of them had been elaborate and fancy. But they had never made him feel the things that he now felt, looking at the modest cotton bra that Ginny Weasley was wearing - she had to be the sexiest witch he ever laid eyes on.

But before he could do much more than swallow audibly, which made Ginny vibrate with laughter again, she took his fingers and traced a long scar up her side, which ended right beneath her bra strap. Harry felt the lumpy skin under his fingers.

"Alecto Carrow enjoyed leaving scars on girls during detention. Thankfully, she never got to my face." Harry looked up at Ginny's face. "I can't say that some other girls were as lucky as me."

Harry's throat throbbed with emotion. He knew that no words were enough so he just ducked his head and traced Ginny's scar with his lips. She sighed into his hands, which were holding her by the waist.

"You're beautiful."

Harry saw Ginny colour at his words and he secretly felt a small thrill that he could make her feel bashful. He trailed his kisses upwards to her neck and finally her lips before she laid them both down. He finally let his hands wander to her breasts and they were not seen back in the house for some time.