AN- For Celina Gryffindor

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Correspondence

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He held on to her hand, her fingers looked so small and delicate in his own, though he could feel how tough the inside of her hand was from so many hours a week of throwing a Quaffle. Her hair looked so dark against the stark white pillow she was resting on, and her skin so pale. She was still Ginny, but she looked so displaced being in a hospital bed. He needed her eyes to open and see that fire she had inside of her to know that she was going to be okay.

He knew she would wake up soon, maybe just a few more hours. That was what the Healers said to her family.

None of the other Weasley's were in the room right now. He wouldn't have dared to take a seat beside her hospital bed and grasp her hand tenderly like this if they were around. He'd fought so hard to keep the level of concern in his eye to a friendly and empathetic amount, not let them see how his soul was currently being crushed under the weight of the critical condition she'd been brought into the hospital with.

'She'll be okay, she'll be okay, she'll be okay,' he repeated to himself over and over again.

There would only be a few more precious moments of having her to himself in this room before one of the others came back. Harry leaned forward over her bed and kissed her fingers.

This was the first time his lips had ever touched a part of her, and this was not at all the way he'd wanted that experience to happen. He was supposed to have sent a reply to her last letter, letting her know that he was in love with her, that he'd known who she was for years and in this span of time he'd fallen for her completely; then, he'd time his arrival to her place for when she'd just finished the letter and she'd run into his arms and they'd finally share their first kiss.

That letter was sitting half done on his desk in his room. The plan was to finish it off after her Quidditch game today while she was out celebrating a win. She was supposed to have received it tomorrow.

One more day had been all he'd needed.

Tomorrow was the anniversary of the first time he'd sent her an owl. It marked the tenth year of them sending letters back and forth, of getting to know each other through their penmanship and being carefree about confiding burning questions they had that were too private to ask anyone that they interacted with in person.

He reached up and took a lock of her hair in between his fingers and twirled it around, feeling how like silk her tresses felt. Even before he'd realized that she was his pen pal he'd been drawn to her hair; it was always vibrant and full of life, it practically radiated the energy that she herself always seemed to have.

It didn't look so vibrant right now though, but it did feel lovely.

The remaining few seconds he had alone with her were running out. He brought her hand up to graze her fingers against his cheek and then bring them to his lips one more time.

Harry looked at her sleeping face again. She looked peaceful; so she likely wasn't in much pain, if any.

Her head just needed time to heal.

Maybe she would be healed by tomorrow. Maybe he could still send his letter to her later in the day when she was back home and they could still admit that they were madly in love with each other. Because maybe she too had known that it was him she'd been writing to all this time.

His head shot over to the door when he heard approaching footsteps and he slid his chair back away from Ginny's bed, releasing her hand and crossing his arms, attempting to look nonchalant.

"Hey mate, thanks for staying with her," Ron said as he followed into the room behind his mother.

"Yeah, it's no problem. A bit weird for me, usually I'm the one in the hospital bed."

He and Ron shared a chuckle over that while Mrs. Weasley clucked her tongue; she had been a pseudo mother to him for nearly a decade and always fussed over him when he was injured.

"You two don't look very concerned." Internally their expressions were having him take a deep sigh of relief. "I take it the Healer said she'd be fine when she woke up."

"Oh yes. She should be awake and back to herself any time now," Mrs. Weasley told him.

He nodded and chanced another look at Ginny. He wanted so badly to join her on that bed and just lay beside her, stroking her hair until she woke up. Instead he stood up and made to head out, "I'll just leave you to it then. I expect there'll be more Weasley's showing up any moment now as well."

"Thanks for staying with her, mate." Ron said again and gave him a clap on the back as he headed out.

Harry's whole body was reluctant about every step he took in the opposite direction of her, but he felt like she needed to know how he felt about her before anyone else. Him staying at her bedside would have tipped off Mrs. Weasley.

When he got home, he went to his old school trunk in his bedroom and pulled out the stacks of letters that Ginny had sent him over the years. Each and every one of the letters had been signed simply with the letter 'G'. Not until he was in his sixth year and started looking for his best friends sister on the Marauders Map did he realize that Ginny was not short for Virginia, but Ginevra, thus the letter 'G' being chosen as her signature. That was when he linked the two of them together and started falling harder for her.

At the bottom of the first stack was the first letter she'd ever sent him, and on it was the letter 'G', perfectly printed for him to make out.

This all started because of a program set up for Muggleborn students so that they could become pen pals with children that grew up in the Magical world and ask them things they might be too shy to ask their fellow students. And, while he wasn't a Muggleborn, everything about this new home of his was new to him, so he signed up and didn't let Ron or Hermione know about it. He was too shy to mention it to Ron and at the time he hadn't been friends with Hermione, then, when he eventually did become friends with Hermione he didn't want her to know because she would just list off book after book that she'd read to learn about the Wizarding world.

'G' had just as many questions as she had answers in the first several letters that she'd sent him.

Harry sat on the floor and opened each one in chronological order, something he hadn't done before now. She was always so kind about how oblivious he was to the way of things, likely because her questions about why Muggle's did or had this and that might make her look easily as oblivious.

She'd mentioned how quiet her home was now that she was the last one left during their first year of correspondence, which should have tipped him off a lot sooner that she would be starting Hogwarts a year below him, her handwriting was too nice for a nine-year-old.

The next year she hadn't written to him as much, there was a bit about how she'd made a new wonderful friend that was teaching her a lot, but later on she'd mentioned how she didn't feel herself anymore. And it hurt Harry to read the few letters that came the year after that; about how she was questioning if she should still be writing him, and she mentioned how her 'friend' from the year previous had betrayed her in a major way. She'd been talking about Tom Riddle. These particular letters from his third year he'd read again after he'd realized that 'G' was Ginny. He hadn't talked to Ginny at all about the Chamber of Secrets, and he should have. He'd been shocked and saddened the first time he'd re-read these and noticed the small watermarks on the pages that had obviously been her tears. She'd been alone for her second year, she mentioned in the letters how there were some students that didn't want to sit near her.

Merlin, he was such an idiot.

As the years had progressed, they had started writing to each other about more serious issues than rivalries with other students and misunderstandings with friends. Ginny had told him about how she'd gotten her first boyfriend and it had been so strange for her because she didn't know how she was supposed to behave, which led to him telling her about how he had no idea what he was doing with the girl he was 'seeing' either.

Relationship questions were asked and answered over the letters they'd exchanged during his fifth year.

Then his sixth year had started and she mentioned how she had started seeing someone new right before summer break and how they were supposed to be owling back and forth over the summer to get to know each other better, which she figured was a good idea since they'd gotten to know each other only through letters and she felt she knew him pretty well, so the same thing should apply, but it hadn't been working so well.

Even when they got back to school she said the relationship hadn't been working so well.

Then she mentioned about getting caught snogging her boyfriend by her brother and his friend and how she'd snapped at her brother, but actually been relieved he'd shown up when he did.

That was another big indicator that had it all click into place; He and Ron had walked in on Ginny and Dean snogging a few days before the letter had arrived, and he'd been dealing with some interesting dreams that heavily featured Ginny since then. Now he had this to add wood to that fire as well.

Ginny wasn't just a person to hang around with when Ron and Hermione weren't available anymore; she was G, and G was Ginny. She was one of his main confidants.

With that knowledge he started divulging a few more things about himself in his letters, guiding their conversation with mentions of Quidditch and asking for her impressions on what the Ministry was doing, what she thought that they as students could do.

He'd come so close to confessing everything to her so many times; the first was after she'd given him an enormous flying hug after the last Quidditch game of his sixth year, next was when they'd had a moment together after Fred's funeral, then after she'd finished her seventh year at Hogwarts, then when she was offered a place on the Harpy's, after she'd won her first game on the Harpy's team.

Again and again the opportunities had been presenting themselves as of late, and now she was in a magically induced coma to recover from a brain injury from taking a Beaters Bat to the head.

He sat there on the floor of his room for hours pouring over all the letters they'd sent back and forth, noting how there weren't any for nearly a year while the war had been at its worst point. Finally, he folded them all back up and tucked them back into their envelopes and lay down on the bed, closing his eyes and thinking about all the times he'd been so close to telling her about it all; he thought about how chestnut brown her eyes were, how radiant her smile, her perfect lips, that one permanent line she had between her eyebrows from so many hours of squinting in the sun while playing Quidditch. He heard her laugh in his head and the way she said his name.

He fell asleep thinking about her and woke up to a tapping on his window. It was an owl from Ron, letting him know that Ginny was awake, and that she was dealing with memory loss and didn't remember who she was.

()()()

Ginny chewed on her lip as she sat on the floor of her bedroom and went through her things, hoping that something in there would give her a reminder of who she was or what she'd been through in her life.

Waking up in a bright white room surrounded by so many people had been jarring. It had been so bright in the room that she thought she had died. Then someone pulled out a wand and pointed that in her face, making it even brighter.

There was so much noise and so many different voices and she'd had no idea what was going on or who all these people were. She recognized that the person wearing the white coat that had been checking her reflexes was the Healer, so she'd asked them if they could make everyone else leave. His question of whether she was sure she didn't want her family there with her had left her surprised.

They were all her family? There were so many of them.

The woman closest to her had the most concern on her face, which turned to horror when Ginny asked if she was her mother.

The Healer had ushered everyone but the mother out of the room then and asked a series of questions about her past that she didn't have the answers to.

The questions had gone on for a while, but physically, she was fine, so she was handed over to her mother for care until she could hopefully get her memories back, which may or may not happen.

She wanted it to happen though. Everything was so confusing; she hadn't known her full name until she'd read it off an engraved piece of wood in her room, but she'd found her path to the bathroom in the middle of the night with no errors, and even knew which drawer in the bathroom held all her things on the first try with no thought.

Muscle memory, they called it; her muscle memory was fine. Her working memory was fine too, but she didn't have episodic memory. She remembered nothing from before waking in the hospital bed.

She'd touched and smelled everything in her bedroom save for what was in her dresser and school trunk when she'd been brought 'home' the previous day. Now she was trying on a few of her clothes and was dressed in her largest school uniform when she went to open her trunk. There were mostly spell books and old assignments in there, but there was a stack of envelopes with a ribbon tied around them. She pulled that out and sat down on her bed, opening them one by one.

There were no memories she had of her friends, but here was proof of one that she'd been writing letters to for years, and there were notes on the letters that she'd left for herself as well! The letters started with him, and she assumed it was a him, telling her about things in the Muggle world, then launching into anecdotes. Her notes didn't always make sense though, like why she'd written the word 'troll?' or 'stone?' in the margins.

For years they'd gone on and she kept adding those notes in the margins. Finally, after about five years of them writing back and forth she had attempted to finish off his signature by adding an 'arry' after his 'H'; something she continued doing on every letter she received from him after that. Sometimes there was a heart drawn after as well.

It looked like they talked about anything and everything; sex, friends, work, politics, there was nothing that they didn't share. There were no names though, he mentioned his friends but he never gave them names, he mentioned work, but never what he did as a job.

Did she actually know for sure that this person was named Harry?

Had she fancied him, even though he was basically anonymous?

Her stomach was rumbling loudly by the time she finished reading them all, so she stacked the letters back together and tied them up with ribbon once more, hiding them where she'd found them, because there was likely a reason why she'd hidden them, then she went down to the kitchen to search for food and saw that there were a few people that had stopped by.

And by 'a few' it was actually a lot; the kitchen was packed.

"Ginny!" the mother beamed, then gave a curious look to what she was wearing.

Only then did Ginny remember that she had put on her school uniform before reading. "Oh," she looked down at herself, "I was trying to jog my memory."

"That's not a bad idea," one of the brother's wives said; or girlfriend, she couldn't remember them all just yet. "Sounds, tastes, textures, any of those senses could bring back your memories."

There were some sandwiches stacked on plates on the table and Ginny pointed at them, "can I?"

Immediately everyone shuffled over to make room for her so she could sit down.

"How are you feeling?" the brother with glasses asked her.

"Erm, hungry. Thanks for asking."

That earned her some chuckles and gave her a moment to chew the food in her mouth.

They were all staring at her, it was uncomfortable. She got that they were all worried about her, maybe hoping to witness her memories suddenly returning, but in actuality they were just watching her eat and it was weird.

"I'm just going to take a few of these and eat outside," she said, standing up again.

"Oh no, Ginny, please stay with us," the mother pleaded. "The Healer said that keeping things as normal as possible might help too, and you normally eat with us."

"Do you all normally stare at me like I'm a zoo exhibit while I do it?" she snarked.

"Nah, we just do that for Harry," one of the brothers joked.

The sensation of hope jumped in her chest and she followed the eyes of the brother that spoke and saw that everyone was now smiling at a dark haired man at the corner of the table opposite her.

This Harry glanced over at her and met her eye; she found herself attracted to him immediately. It wasn't clear whether it was because of his looks, the way his gaze made her want to blush, or maybe certain memories were still locked away in the back of her mind and the ones that revolved around this person made her body immediately react this way.

Whatever it was, she was drawn to him.

And his name was 'Harry', like in the letters.

"Your name is Harry?" she smiled, unable to help herself. Her history with this person might have been completely wiped from her brain, but she had just spent nearly two hours reading what were possibly his letters and felt like he was the closest friend she had.

If this was him then she certainly knew him better than the rest of the people in this room.

"Wow, she can't remember the rest of us, but she still smiles like the schoolgirl she's dressed up as when she sees him."

Ginny ignored the comment from whichever brother had said it and watched the shock and flicker of something pass over Harry's face before he tried to hide it. "Yes, I'm Harry. Did you remember something?"

"No," she shook her head. "I found some letters."

()()()

The frog that was in his throat and making it difficult for him to talk all morning at The Burrow had dropped into his stomach and he was suddenly very aware of how he was surrounded by so many Weasley men.

Watching Ginny walk into the room wearing that tight Hogwarts uniform had been difficult enough, she wore it so well and it brought up all kinds of fantasies he'd had about them being together at school, now to know that she not only perked up at his name, but she'd found his letters to her!

He panicked.

"Letters?" he asked, playing dumb.

How was she supposed to have known that he was 'H'? He might have figured out that she was 'G', but she'd never made any indication that she'd known he was who he was before.

And she didn't have her memories, so this made no sense.

Her brow furrowed and that one line between her eyebrows grew more pronounced. "Did you never send me letters? Maybe it was an assumption."

She looked put out.

Why didn't he just admit that he had been writing to her?

In front of all her family though?

Ten years they'd been writing back and forth and his plan before yesterday was to tell her he loved her today, now he didn't know what to do and had just evaded her simple question.

She was in a delicate state though.

He didn't need to complicate things more.

So, he shrugged as though he didn't know what she was talking about.

Because he was a bloody coward.

And now Ginny looked awkward. She picked up a few sandwiches and put them on her plate, then headed back upstairs to her room and he just wanted to call out to her to stay, or possibly follow after her.

"Why would she think you were writing her letters?" Ron asked.

"I dunno," he shrugged once more.

"Maybe it was her writing letters to herself. Remember how cute she used to be, falling all over herself when she was younger about him?" George smiled. "I could see her doing that when she was ten or eleven."

"I don't like that she's spending so much time alone in her room," Mrs. Weasley fretted.

"She's always liked being alone in her room," Mr. Weasley pointed out. "This isn't unnatural behavior for her."

"Yes, well, still," she was wringing her hands together. "Next time she comes down, don't all stare at her. Let's just talk to her in turn, yes? Not be overwhelming?"

"We should get her on a broom," Ron said. "She's always been a natural at that."

Harry glanced towards the stairs again, wondering how he might be able to contribute to returning her memories. Also, wondering what her memories of him might involve.

Did she still fancy him like she had when she was a kid? Had that fancy turned into something else?

If he'd only admitted to her one of the many other times that had presented themselves over the years, then he'd know for sure how she felt about him. Even if she would have rejected him, then at least he'd know.

Not much later he managed to slip away, feigning that he needed to go to the bathroom, and passed by her room. He'd never been in her room before, he'd only ever seen glances of it. This time he couldn't just pass it by, he stood outside of it.

If she didn't have all of her memories, then she wouldn't remember who he was and why she had a crush on him when she was a little girl. He could get her honest first impression of him.

He knocked on the door gently and waited another few seconds before she opened it.

There was a look of relief on her face at seeing it was him calling on her, probably because she'd been expecting one of her relatives, then the mess behind her drew his attention.

"Wow, you've been looking through absolutely everything, haven't you?"

Ginny opened the door wider and stepped back, waiving him into the room with her and stepping over piles of things on the floor. He couldn't help but appreciate how far above her knees her Hogwarts skirt started, particularly when she sat down on a relatively empty spot on her bed and bounced once.

"I'm trying to figure out who I am, and let me tell you, I don't seem very interesting."

He froze for a moment in shock at that summation of herself she gave him. "What? No, you're interesting."

"Why? Because I play a sport?" she asked him.

"You don't just 'play a sport'," he defended. "You're a professional Quidditch player. That was always your dream."

She shrugged. "I'm also twenty years old, live at home, the only people not related to me that have stopped by in the last twenty-four hours are either family or family adjacent." She indicated to him at that and he was momentarily offended that she considered him 'family adjacent'. "So, where are my friends? Why don't I have a boyfriend? Why don't I live somewhere other than my childhood bedroom? What was the old Ginny waiting for?"

He held up his hand, "okay, first off, please don't disrespect 'old Ginny', she was an amazing person who I happen to… like, very much. And you do have friends; your best friend Luna is out of the country at the moment and probably hasn't heard yet, and Hermione, downstairs, she's another great friend of yours, you'll come to realize that soon enough." He gave a swallow and tried to stop a nervous twitch from happening in his right hand. "As for… the other thing, what makes you think you don't have a boyfriend?"

She cast her hand around her room, "I've gone through all my things, there's not a note or a love letter or a picture anywhere of me with anyone. So, if I do have a boyfriend, then either he's really crap or I just don't like him very much, which is sad."

That was a fair assessment on her part. She would have made a decent Auror.

"You've had boyfriends before; I knew about two of them while we were in school together. And the first one did suck, I never liked him. The second one you argued with a lot. I don't know about anyone else you might have been seeing since then though."

She pursed her lips and looked down at her hands, which were fiddling with the pleats in her skirt. "It's all just so strange. I don't know how I'm supposed to be behaving with everyone. I don't know if I should be admitting all of this to you either," she added, gazing up at him then in curiosity. "You didn't list yourself as one of my friends."

Merlin, he wished could have claimed he was one of her friends or confidants without her family finding it odd.

"Er, yeah, well. You used to have a crush on me, so I think with us starting out with that kind of dynamic, it makes the transition from that to 'good friends' all the harder."

She smirked at him and he saw that familiar mischievous look in her eye that he absolutely loved. "Are you saying I don't have a crush on you anymore?" Her smirk grew into a grin and she tilted her head as he took his sweet time to answer. "Could it be that the tables have turned?"

Yes!

He couldn't admit that though. "Could this be that you are searching so hard for 'interest' in your own life that you're making up drama for yourself?"

"Maybe," she shrugged. "It's better than being a successful shut in with a drawer full of new clothes that I've clearly never worn."

"What?"

She got off the bed and opened the bottom drawer of the dresser he'd been leaning on which held several perfectly folded Muggle clothes, then she went to her closet and took out a dress on a hanger that he would have had a heart attack had he ever seen her wear it; it was so short, and tight, and the neckline on it went so far down!

Her family certainly would have had something to say about her wearing an article of clothing like that!

Had she really been hoarding clothes that she never wore? Had his Ginny that he was so in love with been hoping for someone, anyone, to give her a reason to wear that dress?

If this Ginny thought she was uninteresting, then had the Ginny he knew felt that way too?

It took him a moment to recover from the image of her wearing the dress she was holding up, an image of she and him on a beach somewhere as the sun was setting and they were ready to go dancing some place where no one knew either of them. In this fantasy he actually knew how to dance a bit and spun her around only to draw her in so he could run his hand along her bare back while he kissed her neck.

"I-I'm sure you had a special occasion in mind for that," he croaked out.

It now felt very hot in here.

Her room was really small.

"Er, look, I've got to go to the loo. Sorry I couldn't give you more insight. Maybe you should ask Hermione about… all this."

"Who is she again?"

Merlin, this was so strange for him. "She's your brother Ron's girlfriend. She's downstairs, the one that mentioned the er, touches and tastes and such." Why did he just say touches and tastes? They were now standing so close together and all he wanted was touches and tastes of her.

Ginny narrowed her eyes at him and smirked slightly, then reached up and ran a finger down the side of his face. "You sure you don't have the teeniest of crushes on me? Because from the moment I showed you this dress you've been getting a little red in the face."

Wow. Amnesia Ginny was very forward.

It was about time that one of them was, but this was not the time for either of them to be coming onto each other.

"You're a pretty girl. Can't blame a bloke for appreciating the thought of you wearing a dress like that."

"And you're a good-looking guy, can't blame a brain damaged girl for hoping there might be something more between us than friendship."

She thought he was good-looking? And she was coming onto him?

Her hand continued trailing down his frame and he grasped onto it when she got to the middle of his chest. "Ginny," he said painfully, "you need to understand that your family has been very good to me over the past many years. I don't have one of my own so I would never do anything to jeopardize my relationship with them."

Her smirk washed away off of her face and the care and concern he was used to seeing in her eyes came back; that made it even harder for him to take a step back from her. He loved those eyes of hers and how expressive they were, he would have loved to stare into them for even longer, but there were people downstairs that would note his absence if he was up here for too long.

"How about I send Hermione up here?" he offered. "She might have some insight on why you have so many clothes you haven't worn or what your aspirations were."

"Okay," she whispered.

He stepped out of her room and closed the door behind him, and took a great breath in the hallway to try and relax himself.

If he had told her he was in love with her before the accident, is that what she would have been like when they were alone together? A temptress? So forward?

And this Ginny seemed to be under the impression that she'd been holding back in her life, like maybe she was waiting for something.

Harry smiled to himself as he allowed the thought that she may have been waiting for him.

It was a selfish thought, but there on the landing, it made him happy.

Eventually, he headed back downstairs and quietly told Hermione that Ginny wanted to talk to her.

He didn't see Ginny again that morning before he headed home. Once he was there, he saw the letter that was still sitting half finished on his desk and realized that if he didn't send her one soon, then it may tip her off that it was because he knew she wasn't her same self.

He set the love letter aside and grabbed a fresh piece of parchment and wrote out a new letter, all about things of no consequence, and sent it off.

The remainder of the day and into the next day he was distracted. He couldn't get the image of Ginny out of his head; specifically the little daydream of her wearing that dress she'd been holding up and touching the side of his face. That image made him nearly useless at work.

When he got home from work he went about his usual routine of making dinner and flipping through the Daily Prophet, being fidgety about not having much of anything to do before he could call it a day and go to bed.

It was around seven when there was a tap at his window. It was a response letter from Ginny. He grinned when he saw it and hurried to let the owl in.

He had always used school owl's when he was at Hogwarts and her responses came back using the same owl. After Hedwig had died Harry replaced her with a standard looking brown owl, whom he also named Hedwig.

He untied the letter and opened the envelope; then was disappointed and confused to find only two words on the letter.

Got you!

A moment later he had to jump back as someone flew in through his open window.

Ginny landed quickly and stood there in his sitting room with her one hand on her hip, smiling at him. "I knew it was you!"

He gaped at her then flicked his wand at the window to close it, and once more at the Floo to lock it up so no one would come bursting in on them.

"You followed the owl?"

She shrugged. "It seemed such a simple idea. I got your letter last night and then your owl kept hanging around for a response, plus, yesterday and today I spent most of my time reacquainting myself with my broom, so… yeah."

She was beaming with joy and he had no idea how he should be reacting.

"But… why did you decide to follow Hedwig?"

The joy in her face slipped away then. "I take it you aren't happy about this then?"

"I… I don't know how I feel about this."

Her shoulders sagged and she rested her broom back against the wall. "I talked to Hermione yesterday when you sent her up to my room. She's a talker, that one. Anyhow, she only had a bunch of theories as to why I had been behaving the way I had before the accident. Most of those theories revolved around you, by the way. Apparently I'm in love with you and waiting for you to acknowledge me."

It was his turn to be joyous about her being there. Ginny loved him back? She really had been waiting for him all this time?

But, the way she said it though…

"That's…"

"That's sad, is what it is," Ginny said.

Now he was confused, and a touch angry. "How is that sad? I'm in love with her, and she's in love with me."

This conversation was so strange. This was Ginny standing before him, but they were both talking as though 'his Ginny' was another person entirely.

"It's sad because how many years have gone by that the two of you have been mad about each other and done fuck all about it? I've half a mind to jump you and I've known you for just over a day. Haven't either of you got any nerve?"

"Hey! We've both got a lot of nerve! We fought in a war together, she tried out for a professional Quidditch team at the age of seventeen and made it! Do you have any idea how many life or death situations we've both been in?"

"So you can go charging into battle, but when it comes to matters of the heart you're both sissies?"

He sputtered a bit. "Did you really fly all this way to fight with me?"

"No. I came all this way to see what my response was to these," and she pulled out a stack of letters that she had in her jacket.

She put them down on his coffee table and he stared at them. Ginny had tied them all up with a ribbon and kept them, just like he'd done.

"You came here to read her letters?"

She went over and sat down on his couch, tucking her knees up to her chest the way he'd always notice her do when she was feeling vulnerable. "I don't know who I am," she admitted. "I've combed through my room, I've read through all of your letters and saw the notes I left in the margins. I'm trying to understand what I was like and all I have are other peoples impressions of me. Apparently I'm sweet and fun and enjoy a good prank, but given everyone's reactions to how I am now, I don't know if that was all a front I was putting out there. Take those clothes that I never wore, for instance." She stood up then and took off her coat to show the tight tank top with racer back that she was wearing underneath. "I walked downstairs wearing this this morning and received all kinds of comments on how inappropriate it was. Meanwhile, I think I look great it in!"

And she did. It was tight and flattering. It also showed off a very nice amount of skin.

"Had I been hiding it away and not daring to wear it because I knew what my parents and brothers reactions to it would be?"

"Probably," Harry nodded. "Your family baby's you a lot because you're the youngest. I could always see how much you hated it, but you always let them do it. I never realized that you might have been hiding this side of yourself for their benefit. You'd always been a bit coy with me."

"And what do you think about the way I am now? Do you think I've had a complete personality change from this injury?" There was anger in her tone, like she was mad at herself for being the way she had been before.

"No. Not a complete personality change. Maybe you're right, maybe you had been holding yourself back. The way you are now, this is the person I see you being when you're playing Quidditch; just all out, don't care about the consequences type. After what you went through, it would be understandable if you were stopping everyone from seeing your true colors when your feet are on the ground."

"What I went through?"

Shit, no one had told her about that yet.

And why would they? Her family likely wanted to protect her from the memory and hoped it wouldn't come back.

He wouldn't have wanted to forget his struggles if it were him though; they were what made him who he was.

"You were possessed when you were eleven. For nearly a year you fought it off and in the end, you nearly died because of it. It happened because you wound up sharing too much of yourself with a Dark object."

She sat back down and tucked her feet up again, encouraging him to go on with his story through her look alone.

He took up on the cushion across from her and told her about what happened from his perspective in his second year, even telling her about the horcrux. Then he continued talking, telling her about each years events at school after that and then right up until Fred's burial.

By the time he was done talking she had tear tracks down her cheeks, just like she had when they were laying Fred to rest. That time he hadn't done anything about it, this time he reached across the distance between them and used the pad of his thumb to wipe them away.

The way she was looking up at him as he did that, her lips slightly parted, her eyes glassy and hopeful, her chin slowly tilting upwards.

Merlin, how he wanted to kiss her then.

He didn't though, he sat back down in his seat and they continued to stare at each other.

"You really love her, me, don't you?" she smiled softly.

"I really do."

She nodded. "And what if I'm stuck being like I am forever? Do you think that you could wind up falling in love with me too?"

"Yes," he admitted. "But it's too soon to let go. You have to understand that I've thought about what it would be like to finally tell her, you, and the reaction I'd get. Now you've told me that she'd been feeling the same way." He shook his head. "You've only been out of the hospital for two days."

She put her hand on his knee to stop him. "I get it."

He placed his hand over hers and let it stay there for longer than he should have, then he stood up. "I'll go and get you those letters."

After he'd handed over his stack of letters from her, he expected she'd take them and leave, but instead she stayed. She got more comfortable and started reading through them right where she was.

He made them both tea and figured that since she was reading her letters to him, he could be afforded the same luxury and started reading through his letters to her, mostly taking note of how she'd been able to decipher what he'd been talking about by making notes on them, the penmanship telling him it was years after the letters had been sent that she'd gone through them all and parsed before adding the notes. The letters where she'd written out his name and added a heart after had made him smile.

It was very late in the evening by the time they were done.

He sat back against the couch with his feet up on the coffee table. "How is it that I haven't been hounded by anyone from your family to help look for you this evening?"

"I said I was tired and went to bed right after dinner," she shrugged. She then held up a few of her letters. "She was pretty desperate for you to connect the dots here."

"How do you mean?"

"The mention of 'brothers' and 'Quidditch' are on nearly every letter. I think she wanted you to step up."

He grabbed a stack of letters and held them up too. "I've a feeling that she knew well before I did, so she could have been the one to say something."

Ginny grinned and chuckled before resting her head back on her pillow. "You are both idiots."

"Apparently."

He'd never spent this much time in her presence before and wondered if this is what it would have been like with his Ginny. It was so effortless, save for the mad urges to lean over and snog the daylights out of her.

It was too dark for her to have found The Burrow by flying there, so Harry offered to Side Along Apparate her home around midnight.

"Thank you for coming over. I know this is strange between us, but I'm really glad you let me know how you, she, felt."

"Feel's," she corrected. "I might not be the person that you knew completely, but reading those letters I wrote to you, they sound like me, or at least what I would have written." She reached up on her toes then to give him a hug and kissed his cheek. "I suppose that will have to satisfy me for now," she whispered in his ear before stepping back from his arms and walking down the hill to her house.

Harry stared after her in a daze.

Two days with this brazen personality of hers and he'd gotten farther with her than he had in the five years before that since he realized he fancied her.

()()()

Ginny woke late the next morning. It hadn't been a long sleep she'd had, what with only getting home at midnight and falling asleep around one.

Today was when she was supposed to go back to the Holyhead Harpies pitch and see if she still had what it took to be a star Chaser. One of the other Chasers on the team came over to the house to take her to the stadium and guided her through the arena under the stands to where the team had congregated in a changeroom. There was a banner hanging above them that read 'Get Flying Soon, Ginny!' and they all clapped when she entered.

It was disorienting to have that many unknown faces smiling at her and talking to her over each other. Then finally she was back in the air with the others and everything felt natural once more. She started throwing the Quaffle back and forth with a few of her teammates and managed to keep up with the drills. Her captain pulled her aside every half hour to check in on her, but she felt fine, great even.

After three hours of drills, practice and warmups they separated into two teams and started playing a pickup game.

It all came so easy to her. She flew in formations with the other Chasers on her team that she simply knew were what she was supposed to do. She scored on the opposing Keeper several times as the game went on for an hour, then when her team caught the Snitch they all cheered and clapped, then flew to the ground to give a congratulatory hug.

Something happened in her head then when they were in the huddle. Everything grew muffled and there was this pressure behind her nose and near her forehead. She grew dizzy, then suddenly everything snapped back to normal. It was like a final jigsaw puzzle piece in her brain was put back into it's place and she opened her eyes again.

She was with her team, they were celebrating!

But she didn't remember them winning the game.

She glanced at the scoreboard and saw that it was 250 to 70. But it had been 40 to 20 the last time she'd looked at it.

How had she simply forgotten that much of the game?

And the stands were empty.

The huddle broke and the girls started walking away from her, but she didn't move.

They were at the practice pitch.

"Ginny?" Gwenog called back to her. "You coming to shower off?"

She didn't respond though, she just kept looking around in confusion.

"Ginny?"

"What day is it?" she finally asked. "We- we were playing against the Tornado's, weren't we?"

Gwenog's eyes grew wide then. "You remember that?!"

"Of course I remember that. It just happened. I mean, we, we were in the middle of a game against them. How are we here now? What happened?"

Gwenog took her elbow and told her they were going to St. Mungo's. Given how confused she was, Ginny didn't argue or resist.

Three days she was missing from her memory, the Healer told her. She'd been in a fugue state for three days.

"Wait, so I was walking, talking, playing Quidditch, all that, but I didn't know who I was?" she asked her Healer and Gwenog.

"Today was your first day back a practice," Gwenog told her. "Your mum wrote and said you seemed fine save for your memory. And let me tell you, you flew like you hadn't missed a beat."

"It might have been the adrenaline from playing the game that restored her memory," the Healer nodded as he kept running spells over her. "From what I can see here, there isn't anything wrong with you. This happens sometimes after a head injury. You might have some dizzy spells, and I'd recommend taking a week off from doing anything that could potentially cause injury to your head again," this he directed more at Gwenog, "but other than that, you're fine."

"I'm fine," Ginny shrugged at Gwenog after the Healer left. "That's not weird or anything. Three days worth of missing memories, yet 'I'm fine'."

"Hey, three days is better than the twenty years you've been missing for the last three days."

Her mum found them then. "Ginny! The Healer just told me you've got your memories back."

"Yeah, hey mum," she hugged her. "Sorry if I scared you there."

"Oh, never you mind," she waved off and cupped her cheeks again like she always did, like Ginny was still a child that needed minding, and she always let her. "It's just good to have you back."

"Was I behaving strangely?"

The crease between her mother's eyebrows grew deeper, indicating to Ginny that her mother was not going to be completely truthful about her answer. "You weren't… unlike yourself."

"Way to be vague, mum."

With a shake of her head her mother simply started collecting Ginny's things, her uniform and her shoes, so that they could leave.

"You seemed completely like yourself when you were on the pitch," her captain offered.

"And at home, well, you just had a lot of questions and spent a great deal of time by yourself, going through your things to try and remember something."

Ginny supposed it was a good thing that she was still living at home when this accident happened. If she were living by herself then who knows what she might have got up to unsupervised.

She'd been dreaming of moving out of The Burrow for ages, fantasizing about having a small flat to herself, or maybe a place with a flatmate. Her dream of being a professional Quidditch player had come true, now she was wanting all the other dreams that she'd been putting on hold to come true as well; traveling, getting herself lost in a crowd in the Muggle world for a day, finding the nerve to tell Harry that it was her he'd been writing to for the past ten years.

The last one there, that was going to be the most nerve wracking. There was little more than a few glances shared between them when they would see each other. She couldn't recall the last time they'd spent any time together one on one; it was likely for just a few moments in the kitchen here and there because they were always surrounded by her family.

Gwenog gave her a hug before she took off, also letting her know she had a week off, like the Healer suggested. Then her mother took her home and let her get settled in.

Ginny went to her room and saw the state it was in, which was a mess. Either she had really been looking for some insight into what made 'Ginny' tick, or her other personality was a complete slob.

And she'd worn some of her clothes she'd been saving!

Those clothes were for vacations or days in the Muggle world when her family wouldn't see her! She could only imagine what her brothers might have said to her if they saw her wearing those skin tight tops; Muggle fashion didn't leave much to the imagination.

She started tidying all the things in her room, feeling like her privacy had been invaded with each personal item she needed to put back in its place.

Then she found the stack of letters from Harry.

They were absolutely not where she had left them.

She hadn't asked anyone about them, had she?

She leafed through them and saw there was one that arrived while she wasn't herself and read it. There wasn't much of consequence there. Actually, it was much more mundane than his letters usually were.

Had she written him back?

She flipped the letter over and saw something written in her own handwriting that made her sit down abruptly on the bed.

'G- Harry loves you too, by the way. I don't know what you're wasting your life for by still living at home with a drawer and closet full of clothes that you've never worn, but as for waiting for your love life to start- why? He refused to kiss me because I wasn't you, but if you don't come back ever, I will wear him down eventually. -G'

Harry refused to kiss her? Does that mean that she admitted to him that she was 'G'?

Her other self wasn't wrong, she had been waiting.

Had Harry been waiting for something too? How did she know that Harry 'loved' her? Did he admit that he was 'H'?

Did her whole family know?!

No, they couldn't have, her mum would have said something.

And her mum was probably sending letters and Flooing the family now to let them know that she had her memories back.

So… should she just wait until Harry showed up and see what his reaction to her was?

She looked down at the note she'd written to herself and could hear her subconscious calling her a coward.

What was her alternative option though? Just show up at his flat? Their grates were connected, but would he even be home?

She checked the time and it was only just four now, so he could be at work.

'More excuses!' her subconscious taunted.

'Okay, fine,' she thought and stood up. She would go to Harry's, check if he was there, and if he wasn't then she'd just wait until he showed up here.

As she walked back down the stairs she didn't know whether to wish he was home or not. If he wasn't, then she could still keep the fantasy alive in her head that they would wind up together one day, at least until they did see each other again.

Her mum was back in the kitchen, so Ginny darted for the fireplace and tried to be as quiet as possible about calling out Harry's Floo name, then she swirled off and came out into his flat.

Which was empty.

She let out a breath of relief and was about to turn back when she saw that he had all of her letters all over the coffee table.

He'd been looking over them?

There was a flash of green behind her and she was pushed from behind, then arms wrapped around her waist to stop her from falling on top of the table.

"Ginny?"

"Harry!"

She spun around in his arms and looked up at his crooked glasses.

"What are you doing back here?"

"Back? I've been to your flat before?" She hadn't though, not even when he'd moved in and Ron and the twins were helping him get settled in.

"You… don't remember?"

"I got all my memories back, but I don't remember ever being to your place."

"You've your memories back!" he grinned.

"Yeah," she grinned back. "I was playing Quidditch today and it all just came rushing back to me. I don't remember the last three days though. Is that when I was here?" He still had his arms around her, she noticed. And he also showed no sign of letting go.

"Yes. You were pretty confident over the last few days and followed my owl back here on a broom."

Her jaw dropped and she looked behind her at the letters. "Then you know."

"And you've known for years. We've both known."

She blushed and didn't know what to say.

"I missed that," he said softly.

"What?"

"That blush that you get when you're around me."

"I don't blush around you!" she protested.

He grinned wider. "You get obstinate as well."

She scoffed. "Harry-" then she was cut off, by his lips.

He was kissing her.

Harry was kissing her!

And she only missed a tic before she kissed him back. They stood there in his sitting room with their arms wrapped around each other for ages as their kissing grew more desperate. There were years of repressed emotions that were surfacing and being put into this kiss. It got so that the room grew much too hot and she was desperately trying not to peel off a layer of clothing to try to cool down, because it was most certainly not the kissing she wanted to cool down.

His arms wrapped around her tighter and she drew in a sharp breath against his lips when she felt his own enthusiasm against her hip.

She'd fantasized about him wanting her that way, and taking her too. In those fantasies he'd been very forward about what he wanted, how he wanted to take her. But she wasn't a virgin in those fantasies.

"Harry," she panted.

"I'm in love with you," he blurted out in a hurry before capturing her lips again.

"I'm," kiss, "in love," kiss, "with you too."

He started kissing her more intensely then before beginning to trail kisses down her neck, then she couldn't take it anymore. It was too hot in here! She grabbed her shirt at her waist and pulled it over her head, tossing it behind her.

"Ginny!" he pulled back in surprise.

"I'm too warm," she said quickly before grabbing the back of his head and bringing his lips back to hers. She didn't care that she was standing there only in her bra, she just wanted his lips to still be on her body.

They slowly worked their way over to his couch and wound up horizontal, his hands started wandering and so did hers.

While she was incredibly turned on, they did need to slow down and talk.

She started massaging his back slowly and he gave a groan and his kisses grew more languid. "We need to slow down," she whispered.

Then he gave another kind of groan and rested his head on her shoulder. "I know. I just didn't want to wait any longer to do that."

She kept her eyes closed and let a silly smile take over her face. "How long exactly had you been waiting?"

"Five years? Give or take."

"Wow, that's a lot of wasted time."

"Tell me about it." He looked up at her then. "My most recent plan had been to tell you on Sunday, but then you'd had your injury and weren't yourself, so again I waited." He was still pressed against her, his waist conveniently nestled between her legs and applying a very nice amount of pressure there.

"My mum said I was pretty direct."

"You were," he grinned. "It's nice to know it isn't just my name and personality you're attracted to." He kissed her chest then, above her breasts, his hand moving up her side, fingers roaming like they were itching to remove her bra.

"It's nice to know that you 'refused to kiss her'," she countered, unable to resist shifting slightly so her pelvis would move further down his stomach towards his own.

"What?"

Her hand found its way into his hair and she watched as his eyes slipped closed in appreciation of the gesture. "She wrote me a note. It said that you were in love with me and I was wasting my time by putting things off, and that you refused to kiss her."

"It was confusing; having you being all forward and suggestive," his hand slipped under her back and down to cup her bum, "then showing up at my window. I'd wished for those things, but not like that."

"So, you're saying that all I needed to do was show up at your flat?" She arched her back so he would get a firmer grasp of her bum.

"All either of us needed to do was just admit we fancies each other." He started kissing his way down her neck again.

She traced a finger down the side of his face and took his glasses off, placing them on the coffee table. "So, that's that discussed then?"

"It is."

She traced her one hand down the side of his face, then down to his side, where she tried to pull him up the couch so he would lay on top of her properly and she could feel his arousal again. "So now all we need to do is make up for lost time."

"We do," he grinned.

"I suppose we should just keep on snogging then."

"We should."

()()()