6After seeing Half-Blood Prince on Tuesday, it inspired me to write some Harry/Ginny, because they pulled it off so wonderfully.
The steam from my untouched cup of tea is starting to fade, even though the warmth of it still burns my hands. And after everything that's happened, all of this grief and hope that is just so confused, I find that I can do nothing more than stare at the shattered people around me. My mind refuses to think ahead, or really think at all. I haven't any more tears left because I don't even truly understand how to feel anything other than numbness.
There is too much death and destruction and silence here that I feel completely empty of emotion.
It's busy, the school. But it is diligent and silent, opposed to the kind of bustling I am so used to. Or, was used to.
They carried his body away - Fred's, that is - hours ago. Not many people were able to really sleep, instead moving about in a weary trance. The feel of the battle hadn't quite faded in everyone yet; there was a taste of unfulfillment in the atmosphere that motivated everyone, even those in mourning like us, to move about with the purpose of repairing. Yet I couldn't figure what exactly there was to repair.
Yes, the castle, grand and noble as it once was, had been permanently scarred in this last battle. In the last battle. But all that could have been remedied with the flick of a wand. As for the emotional repair, I didn't see how that could ever be.
Because in this past year I've seen myself and everyone I love suffer. If anything, I think it has made me grow up some. For the most part though, I only see the world through a more critical eye. Everything has been dark, and I don't know how I can possibly return to a light that was dying a slow death.
As I think this, the sun begins to set again. Night is coming again, and I think that for the first time in a long time, people can find solace in it. I know that I will. I think that with the peace of the night, I might be able to sort myself out a bit. Right now, moving normally seems surreal. Dad says that I'm in shock, and that it will all come to me eventually.
Secretly, I hope it doesn't. I don't want to break down like Mum, or Percy, or any of them. I don't want to have to feel the pain, because I've already had my share. I don't know whether I can bear anymore, because even though I may always come off as strong, I'm still just flesh and bones and blood. So I get hurt somewhere, even though I bear no scars. Wherever that somewhere is, I would prefer to keep it hidden.
The tea has stopped steaming completely when I realize it's one of Trelawney's prized pink cups. It's almost funny to see it so unscathed, so preserved. It is totally out of place. But then again, so am I.
Everyone who was milling about has somehow disappeared. All except for Hermione and Ron, who are sitting rather conspicuously at the other end of the table, glancing back at me every so often. They're talking quietly, and I know that they're talking about me and about. . . Harry. As of right now, that is the last thing I want to hear, and he is the last thing I want to see. Despite his safety, I cannot possibly think of returning to a normal life. Not after this.
Taking a sip of the barely warm liquid, I can see, very clearly over the edge of the cup, the form of a seventeen year old boy with several scratches and other wounds on his body and clothing. His green eyes are meeting directly with mine before I turn away quickly, cup still in my hand. Out of the corner of my vision I see Ron and Hermione getting up quietly in order to leave me alone. All I can think of is running away from that dark-haired figure though. I don't want to confront this. Not now.
Regardless, there's the sound of pursuing footsteps behind me. That keeps me running faster, and a bit of the tea swashes over the side and to the floor.
"Ginny!"
He's five yards behind me now, and I feel my feet hesitating while he shouts my name.
No. I do not want this to happen.
So the running continues. Being that we're both on the Quidditch team, it is a fast chase. We've run out onto the grounds, toward the Forbidden Forest and Hagrid's neglected hut until I feel the air ripping at my lungs. Harry is also panting with some exhaustion behind me, and I know that as soon as I stop, he'll stop too.
Yet I can't keep running. I've got to take a bit of a rest now. The effects of the bloody war have caught up on me physically.
"Ginny," he repeats softly. We're both sitting on the ground now.
I'm not going to respond to that, Harry. You've got to give me a bit more than that. I took a sip of the tea that has gained some more bitterness with the prolonged amount of time the dredges have swilled around in it.
"I'm s-" He begins what I had expected, but his actions are starting to elicit my emotions. Anger is quickly rising within me, and I swallow the rest of the tea swiftly.
"Don't! Don't start the apologies. It doesn't even make a difference, because I know you're sorry. I mean, how could you not be? I don't want to hear anything from you, at all, unless you're planning on giving me a damn good explanation!"
Ashamed, his face turned. Only for the briefest moment. With his emerald eyes staring right into my brown ones, he said, as heart-wrenchingly honest as possible, "I can't help but say that I'm sorry. It's my fault Fred. . . it's my fault that he's gone. If I had only figured it out earlier.
As for an explanation, what is there to explain? You know why I had to go, and why you had to stay. It was to protect you! I couldn't have-"
"Couldn't have what? Allowed me to follow the Golden Trio on their Voldemort hunt because little Ginny might get herself hurt? I'm not a delicate doll, you know! I'm a human, I have feelings; and I'm also a girl, who stupidly thought that things might be okay in the end. And if you wanted to protect me so badly, you should never, ever have given me all those false promises last year! I really thought that you would stay with me and we - we could fight together! Bloody hell, Harry, I'd have rather died with you than stay at home while you were off by yourself!"
In my anger, I threw Trelawney's cup at him harshly - he ducked just in time for it to shatter at the ground in exactly two halved pieces. I realized that the tears had finally come, and they were flowing rapidly down my cheeks and off the edge of my chin.
Immediately Harry tried to comfort, envelop me in an embrace. I refused his efforts because I couldn't break this easily, and he knew it.
"You dying with me. . . that's what scares me, Gin. It sounds so. . . sentimental, but if you died, you'd be taking a piece of me with you. A big piece that would never heal. And if you felt lonely, I felt the same, maybe worse. At least you had your family and you knew what to do and where to go. At one point, things got so bad between the three of us that Ron left, and then Hermione was so depressed that all we did was eat, talk, and then go to sleep empty-handed. Mostly, I'd look at you on the Map. I was never sure that I'd make it out alive - never make it back to you."
He was standing there while I rubbed my face. I didn't want these tears, I didn't want anymore for him than to be bloody sorry.
What I said next was fractured by sobs. "You're talking as if I don't know how you feel. Well, if you think that, it just goes to show how stupid you can be sometimes, Harry. How do you think I felt when I saw you in Hagrid's arms, motionless? How do you think I felt?!" Tears continued to fall, but gratefully I was no longer sobbing as I shouted louder than ever in my immense temper. I almost wished that I had my wand with me.
Harry imagined how he would have reacted had their roles been reversed, and he replied earnestly, "Crushed, heart-broken, devastated. I'd be completely lost if I had been you."
I wasn't surprised that he echoed what he had said at Dumbledore's funeral. With his honesty, the bitterness and resentment I had held for so long was starting to give away the slightest. But I wasn't over yet.
"I know you mean it. But what you did still left me alone. How could have-have gone into the forest and let him take you? What was that all about? This is not what it's supposed to be! You're supposed to tell me things, the essentials at least, so I know what's going on! You left me completely without a clue and it's harder than ever to forgive you after I saw you pretending to be dead. it scared me out of my wits and I was devastated, Harry. What's more is that you didn't even give me the chance to say goodbye, had your plan not worked."
Looking truly downcast and ashamed, his voice quavered. "It was the only way to get rid of the piece of Voldemort's soul inside me."
Had I heard him correctly? The piece of Voldemort's soul? Inside Harry?
"I had to get him to kill me, and then destroy the snake to get rid of the last piece of his soul. Before I left the castle I did my own goodbye to you; I saw you with the other girl, trying to help. If I had said or done something, I know I wouldn't have been able to carry the rest through. The trouble is Ginny, that I love you too much."
Though this admission was heartfelt, it only made me angrier that he would try to calm me with such a cliched method. I wasn't about to back down now. I may have had a silly schoolgirl crush once, but Harry no longer had that influencing power over me to make me swoon and blush. I had grown up, and I was going to make sure he understood.
My voice shaking with a sort of unbound rage, I replied in a dangerous tone. "You know that I love you, and that I have for as long as I can remember. So don't pull this on me - it's not going to make me crawl back into your arms and let all of that go. I'm not the little one anymore, and you can't be there to protect me all the time. Try to see through that thick head of yours, through your people saving thing, and realize that I am not the girl who will stand in the background and allow the boys to fight for me! I don't have to rely on you all the time, even though I do love you!
"Blimey, Harry, but you're so bloody egoistic and tactless sometimes! I thought you understood that I didn't want to be treated like an innocent child; my parents and siblings already do it enough, and the only freaking person that does seem to know where I'm coming from is Hermione or Luna!"
Harry was speechless for once. For there was nothing on Earth nor Heaven nor Hell that he could have said in his defense. While I hated myself for saying all of this, I only hated him more for causing it. The part of me that had contained my feelings had been unleashed and I felt liberated for the first time in a year.
I didn't care that I had exposed the place where my pain was hidden, because I needed to let all of this known, and to let it go. I needed this poison to come out and I needed a cure, or some sort of compromise. I also knew that Harry was the one that carried my cure the moment his eyes filled with moisture, and he put his arms around me.
"You know how I feel," he whispered as my shoulder was dotted with fresh tears. "And I'm glad you told me. Can you forgive me, eventually?"
I nodded, my throat tight. I could somehow feel what his next question would be.
"Gin; Ginevra Molly Weasley, dearest Ginny, will you marry me, eventually?"
"Harry James Potter," I turned to look him in the eye, my lips upturning in a smile.
"What took you so bloody long?"