AN- Sorry I've been disappearing. I collected a new hobby and then summer got busy. I'm still thinking about writing, I'm just not getting in front of the computer as much.

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Chapter 9

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He wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting their relationship would look like after they'd gone on that date, he'd been too consumed with the fact that he was actually going on the date with her to see past it to what his end goal would look like. Everything in his life was always simply going from one goal to the next and each goal didn't necessarily have anything to do with the next; i.e. get the Philosophers Stone away from Snape, which wound up being Quirrell, make it through Triwizard Tournament alive, finish off Voldemort. Most recently his goal had been to get his best friends back.

It had been 'mission accomplished' on all those things.

Going on a date with Ginny hadn't been a goal, it had been a spur of the moment impulse he acted on.

That mission had been accomplished now, but he didn't know what to do from here.

Now it was a few days later and he wasn't sure what they were to each other. She was carrying on with her life like she always had, he saw her in class and at Quidditch practice and meals. She hadn't changed things around so she was sitting beside him, and he wasn't sure if he was supposed to have gone over to sit beside her either.

He didn't dare consult Ron or Hermione about it to get their thoughts, or Dean because that just seemed like rubbing salt in a wound. He didn't want to ask Sirius either because he just knew that that would result in some teasing he wasn't ready for. It had been bad enough going to him for advice about the Hogsmeade date.

Each morning when he woke to go out for his run he waited by the Fat Lady and hoped that Ginny would show up. And each morning while he was running he wondered if they were simply both playing it cool and one of them needed to be the one to step up and ask the other to study or something.

He'd also wondered if this is what his life was going to be like now; every day just worrying over his potential relationship with some girl? It seemed like a waste of his time. There was a little voice in the back of his head that would cloud his judgement as he questioned it, saying if this is all his life had amounted to then he may as well jump back into the Black Lake and let the Merpeople do away with him.

But then again, there was another voice in his head telling him that Ginny wasn't 'some girl', that she was a kindred spirit, and he'd know that better if he made an effort to get closer to her.

It was a strange situation for him to be in, and there wasn't anything to distract him from thinking about it more and more; how to turn this thing with Ginny into something. His schoolwork was a breeze, Ron and Hermione were both back to being the friends he knew and loved, and Quidditch was going great so far. His expectations for what he wanted from this year at school had already been met, so this was the only thing left for him to focus on. His brain was betraying him by undercutting his desire for a relaxing year and creating some drama for him to obsess over.

It was dragging his mood back down to where it had been for the past few years since he'd left school. At least now he had his friends back to lighten the load, but his need to get this thing with Ginny sorted was frustrating him.

She was just so bloody hard to get a read on.

That had been some kiss they'd ended their date on, to him that meant that they were going out. They hadn't talked about it after though, they'd walked back to the school after their snogging had met its natural ending point, meaning before it turned into something else entirely, and then she went off to her dorm room and he his, then he saw her at the Gryffindor table at dinner where she was eating with her friends and didn't so much as throw him a wink or a smile.

Now he was out for his morning run for the fourth day in a row and had run by the spot that they'd snogged twice, each time making him run through the 'what ifs' that could have allowed for a little less of the chaos in his brain, his mood growing darker with each pass.

On his third lap around the grounds he wound up at the Quidditch Pitch again. There wasn't anyone using the field this morning and he let himself into the men's changeroom for his shower, still preferring this to using the dorm shower which could get crowded. This time though he was greeted with the sight of Ginny before his shower instead of after.

He froze just inside the door and felt an impulse to grab his wand. Sirius and he had worked hard on getting reflexes down to protect themselves and now his hand was twitching whilst his brain was yelling at him to remain calm.

"Heyya," she greeted distractedly. She was seated straddling the bench in the main room with a textbook open before her and quill with parchment. She wasn't looking up at him, in fact she was still writing something out after greeting him.

She came all the way down here to get her homework done? Odd choice. And he was certain he'd walked into the correct changeroom this time, so it was an odd location for her to be deciding to get her homework done in. "Er, interesting place to do your assignments," he told her dryly.

Ginny let out a short laugh, "yeah well, I got bored waiting for you, and I'm almost done this conclusion. Hold on just a tic."

His eyebrows went up. She was waiting for him? As in, she came down here specifically to see him? This was a surprise. He didn't know whether to be nervous or happy about that. It was too hard to tell from how she was hunched over her homework what she'd come down here to say to him.

A moment later she made a jab at her paper with a bit of a flourish that clearly indicated she'd finished and looked up at him.

He was still standing in the same spot he'd been when he came through the door and saw her there, just inside enough that the door wouldn't hit him if it were opened. He hadn't moved at all due to his confusion about what was going on.

"Wow, you're all… sweaty," she commented. She was giving him a full looking over and he was fighting back a flush.

There was a layer of permanent frost on the ground now as they had settled into winter but he simply cast a warming charm on himself before he left the castle and still dressed in his sleeveless shirt and shorts with runners and his wand strapped to an arm holster. There was a sheen of sweat on him despite the warming charm having worn off after the first fifteen minutes of his run.

Standing this far back from her was probably a good idea though considering how ripe he must smell.

"What brings you down here?" he finally managed to ask.

"I keep sleeping in and never catch you before you head out in the mornings. I know I asked if you would mind me running with you, but my blanket and pillow are just so damned comfortable when I wake up that I can't be bothered," she told him, offering a quick smile like it was an apology before it slipped back off her face and she continued staring at him.

He wasn't expecting that answer. She came all the way down here just to apologize? She could have done that at meals or in class.

Three times they'd kissed now, and it had only been when there weren't any witnesses. Not that he was looking to share that information with anyone or make a scene, he certainly hadn't told Ron or Hermione that he and Ginny had kissed, and all he'd said about their Hogsmeade date to his friends was that it started off slightly awkward but then finished on a good note. Ron didn't have any follow up questions and Hermione seemed to know better than to pry.

He hadn't noticed any of Ginny's friends looking over at him like they knew what had happened on their date, nor did it look like Ginny was interested in gossiping about it.

"Do you just not want to be seen with me around other people?" he couldn't resist asking, a bite in his voice that he couldn't keep out. He didn't want to be another secret of hers, and he had too many secrets that he didn't want to add this to the list of things he couldn't talk to his friends about either.

Ginny's brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean? We were in a pretty public place when we went to Hogsmeade together," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but that could have just been a 'friends' thing given how we barely spoke to each other until after we left the proper village part. I was basically behaving like I was a puppy following you around down there. And we've barely so much as looked at each other since then." He sounded like he was accusing her, he knew he did, but he was just confused about what it was she was looking for with him and it was pissing him off.

"Harry," she said his name with a soft sigh, her brown eyes looking adoringly into his own across the distance between them. It wasn't an expression he'd ever seen on her before. It reminded him of the looks her mum used to give him when she was concerned for his well-being and that look combined with the way she'd said his name gave him an emotional shock that he wasn't prepared for; it reminded him of just how overwhelmed he'd felt the first time he'd ever visited the Burrow, when Ron and the twins had busted him out of the Dursley's and he'd been fed and coddled by Mrs. Weasley before being sent upstairs to Ron's room and realized he would get to stay there the rest of the summer.

Harry didn't know if he'd been suppressing that memory or he'd just been spending so many years trying to keep his emotions in check that he'd forgotten how to lower that emotional shield.

And that one word, his name, and single look from Ginny was all it took to chip away at that shield.

He wasn't sure he wanted to stand there and listen to her explanation for being there right now. He didn't know if he was going to have a breakdown any moment and would much prefer to pull himself together in the privacy of a shower stall or maybe find somewhere to throw around a few powerful spells and get too exhausted to deal with… feelings.

"That's not it at all," Ginny continued. "I'm not keen on everyone knowing my business, that part is true. Don't know if you've noticed but I tend to be either keeping things to myself or flying completely off the handle, either by having too much fun or not enough," she admitted.

"I've heard those are the cards you're dealt when dealing with a redhead," he managed, attempting to make the comment sound light. He bit the inside of his bottom lip and tried not to make it too obvious to her that he was doing so.

Ginny twirled a lock of her hair through her fingers and examined it. "Yeah. Pretty well a family trait, and we're all redheads, so it makes sense. Anyway," she shook her head, "I've not been purposefully avoiding you, and that was all I really came down here to say. That and to see if you wanted to walk with me to Hagrid's class today?"

"Oh, er." He blinked in surprise.

"I only figured it was my turn to ask you to spend time with me."

He stopped biting the inside of his bottom lip and a proper smile slowly came to his face. "Does that mean that after this it'll be my turn to ask you to study in the library or something?"

"Yes," she said simply, looking him dead in the eye. It was a moment before she gave way to a grin. "Is that a yes from you then?"

"It's a yes," he nodded. "Were you going to wait here for me to wash up and we can head back up to the school together?"

Her grin slipped into a suggestive smirk, "or I could just join you in there."

Now he knew she was joking, but wasn't going to let her get the last word in. With a smirk on his face, he gave her his response, "I don't know. I happen to know you think I've got a ridiculously nice physique. What'll happen if seeing me in all my glory causes you to go into a dead faint? How am I supposed to explain that one to Madame Pomphrey? It'll be pretty embarrassing for you."

Her jaw dropped open and she gave a scoff followed by a grin. Harry took that as his queue to head into the shower room before she thought of some other quip to throw at him.

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"So, are you and she a thing then?" Ron asked him quietly as they were getting ready to climb into their beds that night.

The twins and Anthony were still down in the common room but Dean's curtains were closed; he'd been looking at Harry with more and more contempt throughout the day every time he saw Ginny talking to him. Harry wasn't sure what his big problem was, Dean had gone out with a different girl to Hogsmeade, and Ginny had flat out rejected him. Time to move on.

Harry wasn't sure how to answer Ron though. "I dunno," was all he managed with a shrug. "We're… friends, I guess? Dating? No, dating sounds wrong." He gave a proper shake of his head side to side. "I've no idea. She's hard to get a read on."

The anger and hostility he'd been feeling about that very subject this morning wasn't bothering him as much now. At least there was some progress going on the Ginny front.

It hit him then, he'd been mulling over it all week, but now it really and truly hit him; he didn't know how he'd turned into this person who's only real problem was a girl. He used to scoff at the idea that someone could get so bent out of shape over a girl. Now he realized how all-consuming it could be to have this internal battle with himself over whether she was worth it, whether there would be anything that came from them going out, or whatever they were doing.

"No kidding," Ron scoffed. "Don't envy you there mate. With me and 'Mione it was straight forward, but we had a foundation under our relationship. It was to the point where we were playing a game of chicken with each other. Finally, the move was made and we've been a couple ever since." He got a dopey expression on his face. "It's brilliant."

Harry was jealous of the look on his friend's face. Those two were really happy together and had no secrets. Must be nice.

Maybe one day he'd have that too, he thought, moping because that was clearly not going to be the case for a while.

Ron came back down from his mental high and did another glance around the room to make sure no one else was listening. He worried his lip as he looked at Dean's curtains and indicated for Harry to come closer so they could chat.

Harry threw up a Muffliato spell and took up on the window ledge.

"Been wanting to chat a bit more about what you got up to when you were, uh, on the run." There was a worry line that appeared between Ron's brows and he was regarding Harry carefully like he was trying to read his thoughts.

It had been inevitable that this question would come up, he'd just thought it was going to be from Hermione, not Ron.

"Er, anything in particular?" Harry asked, picking at a stray thread on his pajama bottoms. He'd shared some stories, sure, but didn't want to tell anything more than necessary.

"Did you… I mean. Look, when we were in the final battle, I wound up being a bit more lax with the hexes and such. I don't know how many lives I-"

"Yes, you do," Harry cut him off. He was able to meet Ron's eye now and felt his dark mask slip back into place. "You know exactly how many lives you took and I'm sure you've learned their names by now too."

He said this because he knew his number. He knew when, where, how and who. His conscience hadn't let him forget it. It was just this annoying voice in the back of his head that would never let him forget, it would chant the names at him quietly when everything else was silent.

Ron nodded in resignation. "Alright," he said morosely. "It was five, and I do know their names."

Harry wanted to scoff. He wished it was only five names that were chanted at him. Ron was looking really broken up about it though, so he didn't say anything, he just gave a sympathetic look.

"So, you too, eh?" Ron frowned.

"Yeah, me too." Harry said depressingly.

"It bugs me," Ron went on. "But not as much as I thought it would. I mean, they were bad people and if it wasn't me getting them, then it would have been the other way around and then who knows how many people they would have killed. So, it was… justified."

"Doesn't make you feel any better about it," Harry agreed. "But you're right. It was for the… greater good." He cringed, he didn't want to use that slogan, it fit here though. Both sides were fighting for what they each thought was the 'Greater Good', it is a subjective phrase. The way the Death Eaters went about it though, nothing was good about that.

"I dream about it sometimes. Keep reliving the battle and specific moments in my sleep. It's horrible," Ron admitted.

Harry was relieved to hear his friend say that. He'd heard if from Sirius and that had helped, knowing that Ron was dealing with his guilt too, it made him feel more normal.

"Same. You know what though? Sometimes, while I was still under the Fidelus, I would sleep and relive the times that I saw you and Hermione. It sucked because I could see your eyes glazing over when you saw me. It was still nice to see the two of you though."

Ron perked up hearing that, looking grateful for a slight change in subject. "When did you see us? At Order meetings, you mentioned."

"I saw you here once too," he told him. "When Sirius and I came to get Dumbledore."

"What?" Ron's jaw dropped.

Harry hadn't told them this story yet and he still felt proud about how that mission had played out. "Sirius and I had just, er, 'captured' two Death Eaters and used Polyjuice to look like them. We blended in with a few others that had come to collect Dumbledore after he'd been poisoned."

Snape had been the one in charge of slowly poisoning Dumbledore. It had been Voldemort's plan to take the headmaster before he was to be transferred to St. Mungos and then lock him up in a dungeon to watch him waste away to nothing between interrogations. They knew about the plan though; Snape had shared the details he had.

He and Sirius had been part of the group of Death Eaters that hauled Dumbledore out of his bed in the school infirmary and were levitating him away through the halls, the old man had been barely strong enough to stand and he was incoherent at the time. Students and Professors had lined the halls to watch as their headmaster was getting carted away through the main gates.

Voldemort had wanted to make a real show of it.

That was when Harry had seen Ron and Hermione standing by the exit doors; Hermione had looked close to tears and Ron had his arm around her and was giving each of the other Death Eaters a hard glare.

"As soon as we got to the other side of the ward we Apparated him away, telling the others we were taking him to Malfoy Manor, but actually took him to Order Headquarters instead," Harry chuckled. "We heard later that Voldemort nearly blew up the Malfoy Mansion he was so angry. Glad he didn't though."

"Why's that?" Ron asked.

Harry smirked. "Because then it wouldn't have been there for Sirius and I to light on fire a few months later," Harry told him proudly.

"What?" Ron was astounded. "That was you two? I heard that happened but didn't know who was responsible. Wait, so does that mean the two of you rescued the people being held prisoner in there?"

Harry shifted awkwardly. "Er, yeah."

"Mate… Luna was one of them," Ron told him seriously.

"W-what?" Harry felt like his breath had just completely left him. His mind flashed back to the far bedroom when he'd untied the girl who was being molested. She couldn't have been Luna, she'd been older. He couldn't remember the color of her hair though. Luna's hair stood out, surely he would have remembered her hair. "Did, did she say who it had been that-." His voice cracked and then he lost it all together.

"No," Ron shook his head. "Just said she'd been in the dungeon with Ollivander when someone she couldn't remember, said something about a made-up creature causing her brain to go fuzzy," he dismissed, "and another guy with an invisibility cloak showed up and got them out."

Harry sucked in some air and let out a relieved sigh. "That would have been me and Sirius," he told him. "I'm glad she was one of the ones in the basement," he admitted. "The people we rescued from the second floor," he cut himself off and shook his head to try and rid himself of the images; most prominently, it was Bellatrix running away from the house, her body half burned.

"Mate, those are some crazy adventures you had." It was the solemn way he said it that told Harry just how much Ron had grown up since their Fourth Year. Back then it had taken Harry battling a dragon for Ron to believe he didn't want all that 'fame and glory' that came from having his name entered for the Triwizard Tournament.

His keeping up with the anonymity that the Fidelus granted might have played a part in Ron not being jealous toward him anymore, being in the thick of it in the war had more to do with that too. If he had wanted all the fame and glory then clearly the easiest way to go about that was to just start introducing himself to everyone, tell the press or something.

He didn't want any fame for what had befallen him. He never had. And he was sure he never would.

Harry wondered if his personality was largely due to how neglected he'd been from ages one to eleven. Being forced to remain as much in the background as possible had certainly made his life for the past three years seem somewhat normal. It was an easy transition to go from being ignored at the Dursley's to being invisible at Grimmauld Place.

Ron gave him a pondering look then.

"What?" he asked. They'd come this far with their conversation, Ron may as well ask whatever was on his mind now as well.

"Remember before things got really bad?"

Harry wanted to snort with laughter then. "You'll have to be more specific than that!"

Ron let out a single huff of a laugh before clarifying. "It would have been within a year after you left, Dumbledore was already claiming that You-Know-Who was back and no one was believing him, not the general public or the Ministry anyhow, and there were these 'little' incidents that were reported in the papers and people who were supposedly rehabilitated Death Eaters from the last war started showing up hog-tied for the Aurors?"

"Ah, back when things were still simple," he joked. "You're asking if I had anything to do with that?"

Ron nodded.

"Yeah, Sirius and I did do some of the vigilante rounding up. It wasn't just us though, there were other members of the Order. And we had to be way more careful than we would have liked to have been. Thankfully Sirius is really good a brewing potions, almost on the same level as Snape, because we would drop them off fully dosed on Veritaserum so they would just pour their dark secrets out to whoever asked them why they were there."

"Really? Oh, that's brilliant," he grinned. "But why did you have to be 'way more careful'?"

"Because the Ministry didn't believe that Voldemort was back then," he said as thought it should have been obvious. "We knew who nearly all of the Death Eaters were, but unless they had just done something to prove their ways and tell the Aurors what they were guilty of, then they would have simply been released. We still had a justice system we had to work around to get them locked up."

Ron blew a heavy breath out from his cheeks. "Right, that would have been difficult. So, what then, you had to keep following them around until they did something? And then... wait, until they did it? Or after?"

"Do you really want to know?" he asked skeptically.

"I guess not," he slouched. "It's not too hard to fill in the blanks."

Harry was glad of that, because there was quite a lot he didn't want to get into.

"But... Sirius is the one out there now doing all the, er, disappearing, right?"

Harry frowned at Ron. "No. He would have told me so if he was. He's been travelling from beach to beach. And we didn't make them disappear, we made damned sure that it was known who the Death Eaters were and what they'd done."

"Well, you must have some idea of who's been picking them off. There have been a few stories in the Prophet about the disappearances, and they are all people who have surnames that I've heard of."

"I honestly don't know what is going on with that, but if it is just Death Eaters that are getting picked off, then I'm not bothered by it. I'm going to let the Aurors deal with that."

"Fair enough."

They both sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments.

"What are you plans for Christmas?" Ron asked him suddenly.

"What?" Harry blinked at him.

"Well, we're all heading home for the break, but you and I always spent Christmas here. I don't want you to be alone for it. Did you want to come to The Burrow? Might be a little weird with mum and them not knowing who you are. And with whatever is going on with you and Ginny," he added. "But staying here by yourself wouldn't be any fun either. And Grimmauld Place is damned depressing."

He had discussed the break with Sirius, who would still be travelling. Sirius now wanted Harry to join him in his travels though and spend the holiday on a beach somewhere getting pissed on whatever local spirits were available and enjoying the warmth.

A Christmas at The Burrow sounded more appealing though. Seeing it covered in snow with Christmas decorations inside and some nice, home cooked food would have been a welcome sight too, no matter how awkward it might be.

He missed the Weasley home.

He knew Sirius cared for him a lot, but being at the Weasleys had made him feel like he had a proper family.

It wouldn't be the same though with none of them knowing who he was and didn't want to interrupt their Yule by being there and potentially having the other Weasley's being suspicious of him.

And then, yeah, there was the Ginny factor. How would it look if he followed Ron home and wound up seeming like he did it just to be with her more? She might not like that, and her other brothers might not like finding out that he was dating, or whatever the term was, their sister. Taking a trip into the freezing pond didn't sound very Christmas-y.

"Thanks for the offer," Harry told him, "but I'm spending it with Sirius."

Ron gave a nod of understanding. "Where is he?" Ron wondered.

"Ibiza, maybe?" Harry offered. "It seems every time I call him on the two-way mirror he's in another tropical location with a drink in one hand and a new girl on the other." Ron gave a snort of laughter. "Yeah, he is very much enjoying his freedom right now."

"Sounds it."

"Shall we give him a call?" Harry suggested. No doubt Ron and Sirius would be able to buck up Harry's spirit before bed.

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