The battle was over, and Harry Potter knelt, shaking, in the room that had been the underground headquarters of Voldemort’s campaign.



Slowly, he lifted his head from where it had rested in his hands and surveyed the wreckage of the room. A dusty avalanche of broken cement lay smoking in the corner, and Harry knew that Voldemort’s broken body lay beneath it, covered by the wreckage of the room’s wall. Hermione stood next to it, her face white and her simple Muggle clothes bloodstained. At her feet lay the unconscious body of Ron, his red hair coated in the same slime that covered every inch of the floor and remaining walls. Behind him, though he could not see her, was Ginny, naked, and tied securely to a filthy canvas cot.



Hermione caught his eye as he stared into her corner of the room, and she gave a tiny whimper.



“Harry?”



Harry managed to give her a weak smile, feeling the dry blood his face crack. He pulled himself from the floor with effort; every bone in his body ached. He opened his mouth to speak, but his raw throat yielded nothing but a thin rasp. He swallowed hard and tried again.



“We need to get them out of here,” he said, gesturing to Ron and Ginny.



“Do you think you can Apparate?”



Hermione nodded. “I’ll take Ginny,” she said shakily. Harry shook his head.



“No. I’ll get her. She needs clothes, and my shirt will be big enough to cover her. I don’t know where the Death Eaters put her things. You take Ron.”



Hermione looked at him. She knew Harry better than to think he only wanted to see Ginny without clothes, but all the same, Harry had been dying to see her face ever since Bill and Fleur’s wedding. He didn’t have the advantage of having his girlfriend with him all the time the way Ron did. However, she could tell from his face that Ginny’s naked body was the last thing on his mind. She nodded and knelt down next to Ron.



He had been hit by the Cruciatus Curse a few times, and some other jinx Hermione knew nothing about had caused him to fall to the ground, completely unconscious. She couldn’t wake him. Gathering his arms in her hands, she prepared to Apparate. She looked over at Harry. He was removing his shirt, wincing as his sore muscles moved.



“Harry, I’m going,” she said. “See you at the Burrow.”



Harry looked at her and nodded. He didn’t need to warn her to be careful. She was so good at Apparition, he had no doubt that she and Ron would arrive safely at the Weasley’s house.



“See you,” he said quietly, and gave her a small smile. He wanted to congratulate her and celebrate what they had achieved, but he was too tired, and Ron and Ginny were close to death. There would be wonderful parties later, he was sure.



He turned back to Ginny, just as he heard the small pop that meant Hermione had left. He finished removing his shirt, and began to untie the ropes that bound Ginny to the soaked, dirty cot with raw, painful fingers.



Seeing her again had been a shock for him. About a week after the wedding, he had received news that she was missing, presumed dead. Harry, Ron and Hermione had halted their search for the Horcruxes and returned to the Burrow, where Mrs. Weasley, Fleur and Hermione had cried openly for three days, and all of the men in the house had wandered aimlessly around, trying hard to comfort the women without breaking down and crying themselves.



It was at this point that Harry had caught Ron and Hermione sharing a kiss. Ron and Hermione confessed that they had been together since the end of sixth year, but had put the relationship on hold to fight Voldemort.



Hermione had burst into tears again saying how horrible it was for her to be kissing Ron when everyone was so sad about Ginny, and how she hadn’t even meant to kiss Ron at all; it had just sort of happened while Ron was trying to make her feel better, and how she knew Harry had every right to be angry with his two friends for allowing anything to distract them from the fight against Voldemort.



On the contrary, Harry had not been angry at all. They left the Burrow the next morning, and plunged themselves back into the war, Ron and Hermione limiting their relationship to occasional kisses before bed, and Harry trying his best to ignore the tear in his heart where Ginny had been.



He had become numb to this continuing pain. Walking into the underground room and seeing her captive there had unnerved him so much, Voldemort had nearly gained the upper hand in their ensuing battle. If it hadn’t been for Ron and Hermione’s quick action, Harry would have died.



Finally he was finished untying Ginny’s bonds. He removed the filthy rag that was gagging Ginny’s mouth, and he was pleased to hear her take a big, gasping breath instead of the shallow breaths she had been taking through her nose.



She had bloody cuts and bruises all over her body, and her hair and face were wet. Harry assumed the Death Eaters had giver her water by soaking the gag that had been in her mouth. They obviously had fed her very little, because her stomach was small and her ribs could be seen clearly under her bruises.



He tapped her shoulder gently, but she did not wake up. Sighing, he pulled her limp body into a sitting position. She was surprisingly light. He managed to slip his dark green t-shirt over her head. The shirt was big on Harry, but it was so giant on Ginny, it came to the middle of her thighs, and the sleeves brushed her bony elbows.



He wrapped his arms around her thin shoulders, stood up and took a deep breath. Though he had practiced Apparition with other people along for the ride, he was so tired, it would be hard to concentrate. He hoped they would make it to the Burrow. He closed his eyes and turned slowly, forcing himself and Ginny into nothingness.



When he opened his eyes, he knew it was hopeless. He had no idea where they were. Feeling slightly dizzy, he tried to stay standing. He set Ginny on the ground. He swayed on the spot, and suddenly, the world went black.

Ginny was dreaming.

She lay in darkness, hungry, wet and cold, bound to a cot, but not yet gagged. She stared into the room around her, listening for footsteps on its slimy floors. She heard what she was dreading: raspy, harsh breathing and slow footfalls. She squeezed her eyes shut, begging her tired brain for strength, and trying not breathe in a sudden putrid scent.

Fenrir Greyback entered the room.

He was walking towards her, a manic smile on his filthy face, looking at her lack of clothing with glee. It had been his idea to embarrass her this way, after all. Ginny was just waiting for the next horrific thing he would think of to humiliate her.

He knelt down next to her cot, so close, Ginny could feel his hot breath on her face. She felt like she might throw up.

“Your dear Harry Potter’s dead, you know. Gone this morning. We’re keeping you, though. We want you to see his body. Then you can be bait for your darling brothers to fall in our clutches. You’re never going to see Harry alive again…”

Greyback’s whisper was delighted, and Ginny felt her heart plummet to her toes. She bit her lip so hard it bled, but she wouldn’t cry. Not in front of this monster. Instead, she called saliva into her mouth, and spat defiantly into his face. He gave a bark of laughter and wiped Ginny’s bloody spit from his cheek.

“Crucio!” he yelled.

Ginny writhed under the filthy ropes, feeling them dig into her skin. But rope burn was nothing next to the fiery pain that filled her very bones. Greyback stuffed a rag in her mouth, gagging her. She shook harder, hearing a horrible voice in her head saying:

“You’re never going to see Harry alive again…never…NEVER! NEVER!”

Ginny gasped, and the pain vanished. She could feel a cool cloth and warm, rough fingers touching her face. She suddenly thought of Greyback, and stiffened. The touch vanished, but she realized that the hands were too clean and small, and they didn’t have Greyback’s grimy nails.

She slowly forced her eyelids apart, and was immediately greeted by pale dawn sunlight and a watery blue sky. She turned her head slowly to look around. She seemed to be lying on a bed of moss in the middle of a leafy clearing in the woods. A rough canvas backpack lay open a few feet away, and a tiny fire burned a safe distance from the trees. A boy sat poking the fire with a wand that was covered in Spellotape. He was skinny, with untidy black hair.

Harry Potter.

Ginny gasped again, and Harry turned around. She felt simultaneously relieved and shocked. She began shaking, unable to speak. Harry looked at her with concern.

“Ginny? Are you okay?” he said kindly.

Ginny choked, and began to cry. It wasn’t a sad sort of crying- it was a violent screaming, sobbing sort of crying. After all the heartache and pain, after torture and anger and embarrassment, Harry was sitting mere feet away from her.

She had thought he was dead. He had left her alone, and the Death Eaters had captured her. Now they were sitting in the middle of somewhere she had never seen before and Harry was asking her if she was OKAY?

“Ginny, what is it?”

Ginny took a deep breath and brought her crying under control. She needed to figure out what was going on before she could try to sift through her churning emotions.

“Where are we?” she said shakily.

“I have no idea. I made an Apparition mistake- but that’s not the point, what’s wrong with you?”

Ginny ignored him. “What happened? How did you…?”

“I can see you’re not going to be distracted. Fine. Voldemort is destroyed. His Death Eaters are gone. Ron and Hermione are back at the Burrow, but Ron’s badly injured. I tried to Apparate you there too, but I was so tired, I messed up. So we have to wait here until someone finds us, or until I can Apparate again. My wand is broken, so I can send sparks and levitate stuff, but anything else would be dangerous. I’ve got enough food and water that we won’t starve.”

Harry paused and continued quietly, “Now will you tell me why you fell to pieces like that?”

Ginny spent a moment digesting that truckload of information, and her own confusing feelings. Her thoughts flew in every direction.

She thought of Harry and all that he had meant to her and what had happened because of that. She thought of everything she had been through because of him, and everything he had been through because of her. She thought of how it had felt to miss him, and how it had felt to have him close to her. She thought of all the hurt she had felt, and all of the things that could still cause pain. Then she spoke.

“I’m scared, Harry,” she whispered.

He made a funny movement in his face, like a convulsive twitch, and moved closer to where she lay.

“What are you scared of?”

Ginny paused, then said, “You really want to know, do you?”

“Yeah, I really do,” he answered. The sincerity in his voice was so intense, she might have been asking him to dive to the bottom of the ocean with her.

Ginny paused again, then started speaking in a rush. She was afraid that if she didn’t get the words out now, she never would dredge up enough nerve again.

“God, Harry! I’m scared of you! I fell in love with you, I swear I did. I cried every night you were there at the wedding, but I couldn’t let you hear because I knew you didn’t try to hurt me, you had to! And then the Death Eaters came after me and captured me and tied me up stark naked so I’d cringe with embarrassment every time anyone entered that room, and they whipped me and tortured me and starved me, but all the while I just kept thinking of you and how much worse you had it than I did.”

The intensity of her own words was starting to scare Ginny. Emotions she didn’t even know she could feel were flying past, and half the things she had said felt foreign to her, as much as she knew they were true.

“I was hoping you didn’t miss me half as much as I missed you, cause then you’d be in even more pain! And I just kept hurting and hurting because I missed being happy so much. So I’m afraid. I’m afraid of other things that could hurt me and you. I’m afraid of feeling those emotions again, because they tore me apart. Harry, they told me you died!”

Ginny finished on a desperate sob. She had no idea why she was being so dramatic. She reminded herself of a girl on a daytime TV show Hermione had told her about.

She suddenly felt Harry’s hand on her cheek, and she knew immediately that his was the hand that had woken her from her nightmare. But as quickly as his hand had been there, he took it away.

Harry looked at her momentarily, his eyes simultaneously grief-stricken and fearful, but the emotion vanished a second later.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I wish it didn’t have to be that way.”

They looked at each other. Ginny said nothing. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to happen now. They stayed like that for a few minutes. The silence in the clearing felt almost oppressive.

All of the sudden, Ginny felt slightly dizzy. Her head felt too light to stay on her shoulders. Harry must have known something was wrong, because he immediately looked concerned.

“Ginny, you’re sick. You need to sleep,” he said quickly.

Ginny tried to respond, but Harry had already pressed a tiny bottle to her lips. She felt as if she were drowning in violets, and then the potion for dreamless sleep took effect, so she slipped into slumber.

Little did Ginny know that the black haired boy had lain down beside her, one hand resting gently on her shoulder.

A cool night breeze whispered through the trees of a thick forest about ten miles away from the Weasley home, the Burrow. Stars twinkled distantly in the navy blue sky and the soft gurgle of a tiny stream was the only sound, apart from the wind.

In the deepest part of the forest, two teenagers lay sleeping, their breathing gentle. A small squirrel peered through the trees at the slumbering humans, watching while they breathed as one.

A movement from the black haired boy startled the squirrel, and it watched as the boy moved closer to his companion, a red haired girl. Still deeply asleep, the boy wrapped both his arms around the girl, pulling her close against his body, as though to shield her from the nightly chill. She, too, moved in her sleep, pressing her back close to the boy’s bare chest.



Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley slept on, even as the squirrel disappeared deeper into the woods.



When dawn broke, the sky turning from inky darkness to misty blue streaked with orange, gold and palest purple, Harry awoke.



It took him a moment to transition completely from sleep to alertness, and when he did, realization hit him hard. What am I doing? Ginny Weasley is sleeping right here in my arms!



Fearing for his sanity, Harry tried to disentangle himself from the sleeping girl. But he had no sooner moved her arm away before she woke up. Like Harry, it took her a moment to figure out what was going on. She looked at Harry with question in her eyes, brushing his hand with hers.



“I’m sorry,” Harry muttered for the second time in twenty-four hours.



He pulled himself up and walked over to the edge of the trees to sit down upon a large rock, rubbing his own shoulders. He could still feel the sensation of Ginny against his skin and wanted to remove it from his head completely, but somehow he couldn’t ignore the half happy, half aching feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with the fact that he hadn’t eaten in almost two days. He couldn’t ignore how her face and her scent kept invading his mind. He couldn’t ignore how she told him she loved him…



Ginny stared after him. Making a sudden decision, she stood up, swaying slightly in her weakness. She was not going to wait for Harry to realize that he was being stupid. She would have to tell him.



“Harry, you’re being really stupid…What do you have to be sorry for? Voldemort’s gone. He can’t hurt us anymore. What are you scared of?”



Harry didn’t answer.



“If what you told me last year was true, you still love me. You know I love you. What are you scared of?” she persisted. She sat down on the rock behind Harry, only a few inches away.



Harry turned around to look at her. His eyes were distant, afraid.



“Ginny, everything I told you last year was true. It was true in a million ways that might take me years even to understand. I love you, but that scares me. I’m afraid to hurt you again. There will always be someone out there, after me. Not all of Voldemort’s followers are gone. I’m scared of them. I’m scared of loving you so much it hurts. That’s what happened to me last time. I’m scared of hurting you, hurting myself. I don’t want to risk that again.”



Harry didn’t say anything for a moment. He simply sat there, his eyes closed. Ginny waited. She had to literally sit on her hands because her instinct to touch Harry was so strong. When the temptation to be closer to him became too much, she brushed his arm gently and spoke softly, more sure of what she was saying than she had been of anything her whole life.



“Harry, I’m scared too. Love is scary. But think of it this way- we can spend our whole lives being scared, or we can continue being the brave people I know we are.”



Ginny thought it was rather like standing on the diving board of a very large pool. You hang your toes over the edge, feeling sicker and sicker, wondering if you should jump in. But then you realize that the pool might be cold, but it would be fun to swim- and if you turn around and leave, you’ll never know how much fun it could be.



“I’d rather spend a short life loving you, Harry, than spend all the time in the world wondering what would have happened if I had done things differently.”



Ginny turned on the rock so she was facing Harry. Slowly, as if they were in a dream, Harry brought his hand up to her cheek.



“I’m not scared anymore, Harry,” she whispered.



Harry lifted his hand from her cheek, slipping it gently around her slim neck, as his other hand rested softly on her waist. She wrapped her bruised arms around him, and his lips touched her forehead, then found her mouth.



The kiss felt beautiful to Ginny, and as it deepened, shivers ran up and down her spine. All around them, it was as if the world were holding its breath.



Harry paused the kiss for a moment, whispering in her ear.



“I’m not scared anymore.”

---

Hours later, when the noon sun was high in the sky, Harry knelt beside Ginny, his hand caressing her sweaty forehead. She slept fitfully, tossing and turning, every so often letting out a tiny moan of pain.



Harry had forced her to go back to sleep a few hours earlier, when the touch of her lips to his had become too hot for Harry’s comfort. She had slipped into a feverish nightmare state. Harry suspected many of her wounds were infected, because they oozed slightly, and looked very red.



He was afraid for her. He now did not fear her love, but the possibility of her death. He didn’t think he could bear having been so close to her only to have her torn away once more.



Harry reached into the his backpack, removing his canteen and a cloth. After dampening the cloth, he began to clean her face and neck, often stopping to drip water into her dry throat.



When her moaning had eased, he began to build a bigger fire. He was going to have to signal for rescue in the Muggle fashion.



As soon as the fire had sent up a significant column of smoke, he sat back and waited, nibbling on a bit of bread and staring worriedly at the redhead who lay sleeping, warmed by the glowing flames.



Little did he know that many miles away, a plump red-haired woman could see a column of smoke as she looked out her kitchen window.

Molly Weasley stared, confused, out of the kitchen window, wondering why in the world smoke was rising from the woods and completely ignoring the tomato sauce on the stove, which was bubbling a little too enthusiastically.

Footsteps coming down the stairs startled her, and she turned to see Hermione Granger enter the kitchen. She looked tired and sweaty and her hair was very frizzy.

“I gave Ron the potion, Mrs. Weasley,” Hermione said, walking quickly to the stove and removing the tomato sauce from the heat.

“Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Weasley replied, returning her gaze to the window. “Come over here. What do you think that is?” She pointed at the smoke.

Hermione peered out the window.

“Someone’s in trouble!” she whispered.

---

Back in the clearing, Harry had fallen asleep. Ginny lay beside him, her hair in his face, tossing and turning again. Her fever was slowly rising and her dreams were troubled and painful.

The signal fire burned on, and the clearing became smoky. When two hours had passed, the logs were mostly burnt and the sooty embers glowed ruby red.

A girl walked carefully into the clearing and screamed.

Harry woke with a start, standing up and staring fearfully around. Through his drowsiness and the haze in the clearing, he could just barely make out a figure with bushy hair. Very bushy hair…

“Hermione?”

“Harry!”

The next thing he knew, he was caught in a very tight hug and Hermione was screeching in his ear.

“Oh my goodness, Harry, I found you! We’ve been so worried! How are you? Where’s Ginny? I just came to see who was burning something in the woods and oh, Harry! Oh, I was so scared for you!”

She stepped back and looked at him.

“You look terrible, Harry. We need to get you back to the Burrow.”

“Ginny needs the hospital,” Harry told Hermione. “She’s…dying.”

Hermione’s eyes filled with tears and Harry immediately wished he hadn’t chosen such blunt words. Ever since the attack on her parents during the war, which had landed them in a ward in St. Mungo’s, Hermione had been very emotional.

As quickly as the tears had come, they vanished, and she switched into a mode of pure efficiency. She packed up Harry’s knapsack, conjured a pair of pants for Ginny and a new shirt for Harry, doused the fire and buried the ashes, and conjured a stretcher for Ginny.

“We can’t Apparate,” she explained, “because we’re in a Muggle inhabited area, and the Burrow has a bunch of protective wards. We have to walk, but it’s not far.”

Harry remembered little of the journey to the Burrow, especially because he was not yet strong enough for that kind of journey, and passed out in bed about five minutes after they arrived at the Weasley family home.

---

About two days later, Harry felt well enough to get out of bed. He was delighted to learn that Ron, who had not needed St. Mungo’s, was also well. Harry had not seen his best friend since the final battle, and missed him quite a lot.

The two were forbidden by Mrs. Weasley to play Quidditch, but they spent endless hours playing wizard chess in the Weasley’s sunny living room, often joined by Hermione, who would watch, or read one of the many books she felt she needed to read since they had never gone to their seventh year at Hogwarts.

Harry would sometimes borrow these books and spend an hour or two in Fred and George’s old bedroom reading them. This gave Hermione and Ron time alone, time he was sure they spent walking in the garden and kissing behind the rosebushes. Their relationship was blooming in the aftermath of the war.

When three days had passed in this happy fashion, Mrs. Weasley finally agreed to take them to visit Ginny. Ron and Hermione had asked for news of Ginny every day, and Harry had pestered Mrs. Weasley about Ginny’s condition once every few hours. They were thrilled when the hospital had deemed it appropriate that they should visit.

The journey to the hospital was uneventful. Fred, George and Fleur joined them, but the rest of the Weasley family had too much work at the Ministry.

As soon as they walked in the door, Harry’s nerves were on fire, anxious to see Ginny. They walked quickly to her ward on the fourth floor, Harry in the lead. They burst into her room, Mrs. Weasley and Hermione sobbing already.

Ginny was sitting on the bed, the Daily Prophet open on her lap, looking pale and slightly tired, but definitely very well indeed. Harry could see several bandages on her arms, and the part of her neck not covered by the thin hospital gown was bruised and dotted with white scars.

She grinned widely when she saw them. Mrs. Weasley immediately engulfed her in a hug. Hermione and Ron rushed forward to greet her, Fleur and the twins close at their heels. Harry waited until the babble of noise had subsided a bit before moving towards Ginny.

Ginny looked at Harry, her eyes blazing and one tear falling gently down her cheek. He sat down beside her on the bed, feeling his eyes go watery. Ginny gave him a small smile, and before he knew what was happening, she had taken his face in her hands and was kissing him very deeply. He pulled her closer to him and responded with equal passion.

The twins wolf whistled and Mrs. Weasley, Fleur and Hermione smiled appreciatively. Ron looked slightly surprised, but not angry. Ginny and Harry broke apart, smiling, but a bit embarrassed.

Everyone began to speak again, congratulating Harry and Ginny for finally getting together again, and generally talking excitedly about how much they had missed Ginny when she had been captured.

Harry thought, as he looked at Ginny’s joyful face, that this was the happiest he had felt in his whole life. Their lives might never be peaceful, or easy, but no matter what tragedies battled their bodies and brains, no matter what sobs and screams shattered a quiet night, Harry and Ginny would walk on, loving each other.

And Harry felt, in that moment, that there was nothing at all, in the whole world, that he could possibly be scared of.