Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling and do not pretend to be. All characters are hers and hers alone. The situation is mine, and hopefully will never be included in her stories. The End. :)





~*~




Don't cry, don't cry
Come on back in the house
And don't cry.
Come on back in the house
And get out from under
That old, cold sky…


Silence.

Silence, save for the wind moaning through the stark black treetops, save for the calls of birds hoping for spring and knowing that it was futile. Silence, as if the world was holding its breath, mourning.

As it should be, Harry thought, walking through the brittle brown grass towards a gnarled old forest. His hands were in his pockets, his weary green eyes downcast, and all in all, he looked too old for his eighteen years.

He felt too old. How could he not? Along with countless others, Ron Weasley, his best mate since he was eleven, had been murdered just four days before. Voldemort, in his last dying days, had caused as much desperate turmoil as he could, both outer and inner. For all his lack of love, he knew that the inner agony was far more potent than any material destruction he could cause.

Harry's heart in his chest was like a small, shriveled thing, or like an animal backed into a corner, small and scared and grieving. But he could put that aside until he found her.

He knew she'd be in the woods. Why wouldn't she be? It was, after all, where they'd just buried Ron. A quiet ceremony, under the light of the dim sun shining through the arcs of branches, a far more fitting cathedral than any church.

Hard to believe the funeral had taken place only three hours beforehand. Everyone there – everyone who could be there, that is – had then trooped back to the Burrow, heavy-hearted and trying to console the broken Weasley family. In everyone's mutual sorrow, no one noticed a certain feminine Weasley slip away and not come back.

But Harry had noticed. Of course he'd noticed. How could he not notice? All he saw was she. Everywhere he looked, there she was…

So, after waiting a tactful amount of time, he'd followed her. Somehow he thought he could help her, maybe. Just maybe. As she had helped him two years ago, in his own time of anguish.

Harry came back to the present when he tripped over a twisty old root, stumbling a bit in his uncomfortable dress shoes. Throwing propriety to the winds, he kicked off his shoes and stripped off his jacket, loosening his tie as well. Ron, had he been alive, would not have liked Harry being dressed up. True, he found it a riot when they'd been forced into tuxes at Professor Lupin's wedding, but then he'd joined heartily in the process of taking it off right away at the reception.

The woods were cool, dark, and quiet. Harry drank in the silence, taking it in and storing it inside himself. He had grown – oh, how he'd grown – from the wild, raging boy he'd been at fifteen, angry at a death that he now knew would have come to pass anyway. Only three years; yet how things could change in that span of time. Now he was steadier, more pensive, more compassionate — almost like Dumbledore, as Lupin had smilingly told him one day.

Harry entered the circular grove where they had buried Ron and stared around, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek and turning his gaze to the sky to keep the tears from his eyes. The sun turned the spindly tree branches into black silhouettes against its pale yellow light. In the center of the small clearing was the slate-gray gravestone.

The world held its breath.

Harry frowned a bit. No one was here. Apparently he was wrong. Perhaps she hadn't come here. Thinking about it, that would make sense. After all, why would she want to come here? It could only cause pain.

Harry turned to leave, then paused in mid-step, straining to hear.

There. Carried on the wind, the barest whisper of a sniffle.

So she was here.

Harry crept to the grave stealthily. As he got closer, he could see her red head above the stone, fire floating above the gray of death.

He stopped tentatively. She might not forgive him for intruding on her sorrow. She'd gone here to be alone.

He was willing to risk that.

He said her name. "Ginny?"

She jumped up immediately and whirled, facing him confrontationally, her eyes red from weeping and her cheeks blotchy. "What do you want?" she demanded rudely.

Inwardly, Harry sighed. He knew he shouldn't have hoped for a better welcome. Wasn’t this how he'd treated everyone that summer after his fifth year? Somehow, he'd thought that perhaps she'd see him, melt into his arms, and speak to him — only him. They would be the only two left in the world…

Harry shook himself mentally and looked down at Ginny. "Hey," he said softly, not knowing what else to say. "You want to talk about it?"

"No," she shot back angrily, turning away. Harry reached out his hand; she drew back from his touch. He blinked away the sadness in his eyes, hurt now but determined not to show it. Didn't she remember at all?

There was no way she could forget. That after his fifth year, Harry wouldn't eat, wouldn't see anyone, would just sit in his room and stare at the wall. He turned away Ron, Hermione, Lupin, everyone. He only wanted Sirius. Whenever anyone offered a comforting hand, he pushed it away, rejecting contact.

Until Ginny had stormed into his room in complete disregard for privacy, her mouth open, ready to give him a stern talking-to. Then she saw the misery on his face, the tear-streaks on his face, and had run to him, embracing him tightly in a hold he couldn't break, despite how much he struggled at first. Finally, the warmth of her hug seeped into him, and he released all the pain inside, sobbing like a baby into her shoulder. She never told anyone.

"Harry, if you're just going to stand there blinking, I'd appreciate it if you'd get out of here."

Ginny's angry words cut through his thoughts like a knife. Harry could barely believe this was Ginny. She had a temper, and she could say plenty when she was riled, but she was never this harsh to him.

Harry met Ginny's eyes again evenly. "Ginny, please…" He trailed off.

"Please what?" she cried wildly. "Go on, finish the sentence, Harry!"

"Please talk to me."

"Hello and good bloody afternoon, Harry. My brother's dead. There. I'm talking. Are you happy, Harry? Are you happy now, Harry?!"

She was half-crazed with her distress. Harry held out his hand. She stared at it as if it was some repulsive thing.

"Ginny," he said gently, "are you coming back to the house?"

"No," she said roughly. "I don't want to be there."

"Is it that you don't want to be with other people?"

"No, Harry," she whispered, her voice breaking. "It's just…he wouldn't…he wouldn't…"

Harry saw that Ginny couldn't continue. She took several deep breaths, her voice hitching in her throat at each one, making a pained little noise every time.

"Ginny?"

"Harry, please!" she begged, throwing herself on the ground and curling up, her thin body wracked with sobs.


Don't weep, don't weep
Come on back in the house,
Little sheep.
Come on back in the house
For a smile of welcome
And go to sleep…


Harry sank down on the ground beside her and stroked her hair somewhat awkwardly. She flinched away.

"Oh, Ginny, I don't like to see you this way…" he heard himself say.

"Yeah, well, you're going to have to," she shot back, sitting up. For all that her outburst had been sudden, she was already nearly over her crying fit.

"Ginny…Ron wouldn't have wanted — "

"Don't tell me what Ron wouldn't have wanted!" she interrupted furiously, balling her hands into fists. "Don't even do it, Harry! I know what he would have wanted! He would have wanted to be rejoicing with the rest of us, Harry!"

Harry was stricken by how she reminded him of himself at that moment: enraged, wild, and adamant about the fact that their deceased loved one would not have wanted to die.

This time, it was his turn to play Hagrid. "You're right, Ginny. But he died to give the chance to rejoice once our tears are spent. Wouldn't he have also wanted that?"

"Oh, stop being so rational, Harry," Ginny said tiredly, burying her face in her hands. "It's so unlike you."

"Thanks," he muttered dryly. "Ginny, are you sure you don't want to go back up to the house? It might do you some good."

Ginny sighed, more pensive than angry now, her fiery blood cooling down. "Harry, how can you even think that?" she murmured, her sad tone muting the harshness of her words. Absently, she picked up a twig and began tracing the ground with it. "I couldn't stand it another minute. Mum's a wreck…I've never seen Dad look like that before…and Hermione…oh, Godric, Harry! They were going to be married!" She buried her face in her arms again, her tears hot and silent this time.

Shock hit Harry like a wave, and he had to lean against the gravestone to support himself. "What?"

"How could you not have noticed?" Ginny said impatiently, wiping her impetuous tears away. "Ron had the ring and everything. Hermione would have said yes, you know it. She would have been m-my s-s-sister…"

Harry tentatively placed a hand on Ginny's shaking shoulder. Now he understood better why she was crying. Not simply for Ron, but for the dashed hopes of everyone else, and the broken future they had been left with. She was mourning the loss of what could have been with Ron. Without Ron, what could they do?

Harry commiserated. He imagined a career with Ron at his side; perhaps, eventually, as his brother, if Ginny could ever feel for him what he did for her, what he knew she had once felt for him so long ago.

"Ginny, I'm sorry about…everything," he said lamely, thinking that perhaps a general apology might be in order.

Of course, she brushed it off. "Don't be, you git. What do you have to be sorry for?"

"I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I'm the one who Voldemort was looking for. Ron was with me. Maybe it's all my fault." Harry was suddenly awash with guilt.

"Don't be like that, Harry," Ginny ordered sternly, reverting to her old self in the face of his strife. "Of course it's not your fault."

Harry shrugged noncommittally. "Then it's no one's fault."

"Oh, it's someone's fault all right," Ginny said mutinously. "And if she weren't dead already I'd wring her filthy little neck…"

It was Bellatrix who'd killed Ron, and Neville who'd killed Bellatrix. Secretly, Harry thought Neville had just as much a right to the wretched woman as Ginny did.

"She's dead now," Harry murmured, almost to himself. "They're all dead. All dead." He rested his face in his hands for a moment, then slid them up, burying them in his messy black hair and propping his elbows on his knees.

"You're tired, Harry."

A statement. Harry turned his face to Ginny's, so close, just on the other side of the headstone. He smiled weakly. "You're one to talk." Her bloodshot brown eyes were rimmed underneath by dark purple shadows, and her face was pale and haggard.

Ginny sighed, tracing the line of one her sharp cheekbones with her fingertips. A solitary tear spilled over her hand. She took no notice. "I am, Harry. We all are."

Harry offered his hand again. "Let's go back to the house, please, Ginny. You can go to sleep in your own bed there, not on the hard ground out here."

Ginny's eyes flashed angrily. "So you didn't listen to me," she spat bitterly. "Harry, I — don't — want — to — go — back — into — the — house." She spaced her words out deliberately, shooting them off as precisely as a missile launcher. "Are you saying it's better in there than out here? You call yourself his friend?"

"That's not what I'm saying, Ginny. That's not what I'm saying at all." Harry couldn't help thinking that, in terms of psychology, Ginny had skipped right over denial, bargaining, and depression and had gone straight to anger; he, on the other hand, had moped for awhile in depression and then, accustomed to the presence of death in his life, had arrived at acceptance.

"Ginny, I just think it would be better for you to be around other people than…than stewing about it out here."

"Is that what you think I'm doing, Harry? Stewing?" Ginny was on her feet now, hands balled into fists, eyes blazing down at him like raging fires. "How dare you say that to me, Harry? How dare you! You know what, Harry — you don't know how this feels! You don't know anything!"


Guess I know how you feel
It's that wild run away feeling
In your heart
When you've had the wrong dream
And you wake with a start…


"And how dare you say that to me, Ginevra Weasley?" Harry was on his feet as well. He kept his voice calm and steady, but her words had broken through his sympathy and struck a nerve. "I have seen more deaths than you'll ever even hear about. What's more, I caused them. Don't have the presumption to tell me I don't understand what you're going through, because I do. I do, Ginny, I know how it hurts…" He sagged, his annoyance evaporating as he was engulfed in memories, and as he saw Ginny's ravished face.

"No, Harry. Don't tell me you know how I feel," Ginny choked out, tears cascading down her cheeks once more. "You don't. He was my brother, all right? HE WAS MY BROTHER!"

"I know," Harry said sadly, fighting back tears of his own. "And he was my best friend."

"You weren't his blood," Ginny shot back viciously. "You weren't related. You didn't spend your life with him."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe I wasn't his blood kin. Maybe we weren't related. That's true. But we were as good as. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that blood doesn't always matter. Sometimes it means the world; sometimes it's just a silly barrier that people use against you. Ron and I were brothers."

Ginny turned away from him, her frame trembling with barely suppressed rage. Harry knew how it felt. You don't want to believe anyone else could feel that sort of sorrow. You're the only person in the world who could ever feel so broken inside. No one else understands. They just keep repeating the same words over and over, and they always mean the same thing, only you never understand them, they never get through to you…

"It's all sort of just like a nightmare, isn't it?" he said softly, not knowing who he was talking to: himself, Ginny, Ron, the trees…

"This whole ordeal. Of course it's been a nightmare. One of those terrible dreams when you're looking for something and you can't find it, or like when you're falling and don't have anything to hold on to. When you're walking down a long corridor that never ends…" Here Harry stopped. It still hurt too much to talk about long corridors.

"And then you wake up. We're all waking up now. And even though it's all over now, we can't forget what's happened. We'll never forget. No matter how much time passes, it'll haunt us. There'll always be other nightmares, but no two are the same.

"But one day, you'll be able to face it. Just like eventually you can bear up and say, 'I had a nightmare'…one day you'll be able to say, 'I had a brother.'"

Harry was on his knees now, hands clasped, face determined. Ginny was finally facing him again, staring down into his eyes, her own anguished face full of a mixture of horror, pity, and a glimmer of…hope? Acceptance? Belief?

"I had a godfather. His name was Sirius Black, and he was the best man to ever walk this planet.

"I had a professor. His name was Severus Snape, and he was a crabby git, but you know what, he saved my life, and I'll never forget that.

"I had a team of friends. They were the Order, and some of them are dead, but the ones who are still alive are all the more precious.

"I had an enemy. His names were Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort, and he made my life a living hell, but he also taught me how to survive."

Harry took a deep, quavering breath. "And I had a best friend. His name was Ron Weasley, and I'll never forget how much I loved him as a brother."

And suddenly Ginny was kneeling in front of him, her arms thrown around his neck, sobbing her heart out into his shoulder as he had once done with her. He pressed his face into her hair, allowing his tears to flow as well.


Well, don't cry. Don't cry
Come on back in the house
And don't cry.
Come on back in the house
And get out from under
That old, cold sky.
Guess I know how you feel…


After a short while, Harry stopped weeping. If he'd learned anything in his life, he knew that tears would not bring the dead back to life. He'd accepted that.

But Ginny hadn't. She was still wailing like a lost child, soaking his shirt clean through. Harry didn't mind, only stroked her rippling red hair softly, trying to convey his feeling through the gentle motion of his hand.

"Harry," he heard her say, almost inaudibly and quite nearly unintelligibly, "oh, Harry, I miss him so much…"

"I know, Ginny," he murmured. "I know. I miss him too."

"Harry, I'm sorry," she sniffled.

He didn't need to ask why. "I know. You've nothing to be sorry for."

"I was being an ungrateful little brat and you know it, Harry. Stop being so bloody polite."

Harry had to grin wryly. "Well, that is a bit true…but you had every cause to be. Everyone's allowed to be irrational in times like this."

Slowly, the girl's breathing steadied, and her shoulders stopped shaking. Harry thought it was fine to step back, and started to rise.

Ginny tugged him back down. "No, Harry…don't go. Please. I – I need you."

Harry stared at the thin, fragile white hand she had slipped into his own and rubbed the back of with his thumb. "What?"

"Harry, you've just saved my sanity," Ginny whispered, gazing up at him earnestly. Harry was afraid his head might explode, he was blushing so much.

"Oh. Er. Well. Thanks. And, you know, returning the favor," he added hastily. "Ginny…don't yell at me again…but d'you think you might be ready to leave?"

"Soon, Harry. Soon. I mean…somehow it feels like I'd be betraying his memory, if I left. That all he meant to me was a gravestone and a bucket of tears, and then I can leave him behind. That's not what I want."

"I understand that. I – I felt that way at the seaside that day…" Harry paused, then plowed on, trying to keep the past behind him. "But Ginny, if Ron is watching, which I'm sure he is, he knows that you can't remain in the past forever. He'd want you to move on. Not forget him, but continue."

One last tear was making its way down Ginny's hollow cheek, and Harry unthinkingly brushed it away with his thumb. The caress startled Ginny. She glanced up at him, frowning in slight confusion, and rubbed the spot that he'd touched.

Then she shivered, staring around the clearing. "Nasty day out. Everything seems so lifeless and cold."

This is not the time for such things, Harry chided himself, even as he tightened his arm around Ginny's shoulders. "Mmm," he agreed.

They sat in silence for awhile that way: his arm around her thin shoulders, her head pillowed against his chest. The only movement was Ginny snuggling her head a little more firmly under his chin.

"I feel so much better. At peace. You've helped me see that…maybe life can go on without him," she said at last. "I'm glad you came here, Harry."
Harry smiled. "So am I, Ginny. So am I."


Don't cry. Don't cry
Come on back in the house
And don't cry…


"Harry, I think I'm ready to go back now," she added, taking a deep breath.

He rested his cheek against the side of her head. "Good girl, Ginny. I'm proud."

Ginny smiled back tentatively. "Well, Ron would have been proud." It took an effort for her to say it, but she did it.

Harry sensed her grief was reconciling itself, with the aid of his words and understanding, and he couldn't help but feel proud of himself as well.

She turned to him and studied his face. Then, without fuss, she brushed a piece of his hair out of his eyes, her own brown eyes soft and grateful. "Thank you, Harry. For — for everything."

It was not a kiss. It was not a confession of love. It was not a complete recovery.

But it was a start.

Harry stood and helped her to her feet, wrapping her hand in his. Neither let go as they started their walk back to the Burrow.


Come on back in the house
And get out from under
That old, cold sky…


"Hey, Ginny?" Harry said at the door.

Ginny paused and looked back at him. "Yeah, Harry?"

"There's one last thing I want to say before we go in."

"Go ahead, Harry."

"Don't cry for the past. Smile for the future."

Ginny did so bravely, and hand in hand, they entered the house.


So don't cry…






FIN.