Summary: In the days after the final battle at Hogwarts, Harry struggles to find peace despite Voldemort’s demise. He longs to seek out solace in Ginny, but becomes reluctant to do so, feeling increasingly uncertain about Ginny’s feelings towards him.
Categories: Harry/Ginny Characters: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 1
Completed: Yes
Word count: 1518
Read: 4030
Published: 08/11/07
Updated: 08/20/07
1. Aftermath by opal25
Author's Notes:
Author’s note: Like many others I imagine, I was somewhat disappointed with the ending of Book 7 and the conspicuous lack of a reconciliation scene between Ginny and Harry. I have since gotten over that, instead finding myself grateful to Rowling for leaving us some tantalizing clues, but allowing us to use our own imagination to fill in the details. My premise is that a reunion would not have been automatic and that Harry would have known this, recognizing that at some point would have to deal with Ginny’s ire for his shaking her off in the Room of Requirement. Ginny, despite her strong feelings and support of him, has been harboring some resentment in being left behind. I also think that despite his success, Harry would remain traumatized by all that had happened. Ultimately it would be Ginny’s strength that ensures his recovery and through which Harry finally gains the peaceful life he has never truly experienced.
It was quite some time, days in fact, before Harry had the chance to be properly alone with Ginny. Though they spent much time together in incidental moments, there was always someone else around and they had little more opportunity than to exchange glances. In truth, Harry was grateful for all the diversions and distractions. There was too much to process, so much loss, so many other things to feel before he could approach his feelings for Ginny and even begin to wonder about her feelings for him. Despite Voldemort’s demise, the future remained unclear, especially where Ginny was concerned. Harry could not be certain as to where he stood in Ginny’s opinion. The last time she had looked directly into his eyes, it had been a plea for support, wanting him to ask her to stay and help fight. He could not underestimate her disappointment in him for treating her like that”his desire to protect her would not likely be met positively and with each passing day his anxiety grew in this regard.
Though relieved and grateful for all the support expressed to him after the final battle at Hogwarts, Harry found that his inner mood seldom matched the one he tried to project. He spent an inordinate amount of time reliving the events of the past days, weeks and months, enduring a barrage of questions, always emphasizing the collaborative effort that resulted in the ultimate outcome, but feeling never quite successful in drawing the attention away from himself. He felt surly and fatigued, his heart clenched in grief and despair. He craved moments alone, but when they arrived he struggled to keep unwanted thoughts at bay, his mind reliving events, trying to recreate alternate outcomes.
It was a couple days after Fred’s funeral, the atmosphere around the Burrow had returned to more of a routine, though with dampened effect minus the usual spirited banter Harry relished about the Weasley household. Harry was up in Ron’s room, reclining on his bed leafing through his photo album when there was a gentle knock on the door and Ginny entered. Harry smiled at her and moved over to make room for her as she crossed the room and sat down beside him. He set the album aside and tentatively reached for her hand. For a long time, they just sat together, Ginny idly tracing the outline of his fingers with her own.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she stated simply.
As well as he knew her, her bluntness caught him off guard. “I didn’t know where to begin.”
Ginny gave a little laugh. “You might not want to let that get out, the great Harry Potter flummoxed by Ginny Weasley.” She had not intended to be sarcastic, or snipe at him, but the combination of her tone and his frayed nerves had ill effect nonetheless.
“Ginny,” Harry ventured defensively, “please don’t be sore at me, you don’t know what it was like”.”
She cut him off. “You’re right, I don’t know what it was like for you, you needn’t remind me. But you don’t know what it was like for me either”to be the one always excluded under the pretense that I need protecting. Little Ginny Weasley, younger sister of the great Weasley family, Harry Potter’s former girlfriend, always in the shadow of someone else’s accomplishments, always feeling like I have to struggle for every opportunity to prove myself”to prove that I can fend for myself!”
“Ginny”,” this is what he had feared.
“No, wait, I’m not done.” She was livid, her feelings gaining momentum and the color of her face characteristically matching the color of her hair. “I resent being left behind, with no word, no communication. Wondering. To watch you go off with Ron and Hermione”I felt humiliated and belittled. And then at Hogwarts, before the battle, you denying me my rightful place alongside you and the other members of Dumbledore’s Army and the Order.” She was clearly worked up, but she was not teary. On the contrary, her voice was certain and penetrating.
“It’s different””
“How”how is it different?” She was shouting now.
“Because I love you,” Harry shouted back at her so that he might be heard. “I love you in ways indispensable and incomprehensible to me! In ways unlike anybody else!”
This silenced her.
“I love you,” he said again, this time his voice barely above a whisper, his green eyes intently focused on hers. “Don’t you see, that having you at my side would have been impossible for me. I don’t think I would have been able to make the choices I had to in the end. You are the source of my greatest weakness. And the source of my greatest strength,” he added.
With a subtle movement, he pulled her down next to him in an embrace, pressing his face into the familiar flowery scent of her hair, grateful and encouraged that she didn’t resist.
It was then that he told her, what he had left out of his account to even Ron and Hermoine. He told her of his walk into the forest to face Voldemort, of walking past her in the hallway, watching her tend to the wounded girl, wanting to reveal himself. He told her of using the Resurrection Stone to conjure his parents, Sirius and Lupin, how they protected him, but still leaving him to make the ultimate choice. Finally, he told her of the memory of her kiss that came to him at the end.
“I survived because of you,” he said.
Ginny let out a laugh, almost a scoff and Harry worried that he had set her off again.
“Oh, Harry,” she said as she turned to face him, giving him a quizzical look of wonderment, “if that’s what you wish to believe, then my ego will be only too happy to agree. But you of all people should appreciate the complexity of what you’ve done. You can’t pin success on one single thing or person. I’ve watched you deflecting the limelight these past few days, constantly reiterating how so many people contributed to Voldemort’s fall. Reminding us of how we’re all connected.”
This made him smile, “I believe you’re channeling Dumbledore.”
Ginny returned his smile and he basked in her radiance, his love for her expanding from within his chest, coating his wounds like a balm.
“He had it right, don’t you think? Dumbledore, I mean. Voldemort underestimating the power you possessed, the power of your support. In the end it was you alone who had to face him, but it wasn’t really you alone.”
“Exactly what I’ve been trying to convince you of,” he said, propping himself up on his elbow so he could look at her and giving her a wicked grin. “You can believe what you want, but I believe it was this I came back for,” and before she could say anything else he kissed her for the first time since that day in her room in the Burrow, except this time it was without restriction, without remorse and he was pretty sure he would continue kissing her even if interrupted.
“Ginny,” he whispered into her ear, “do I need to officially ask you to be my girlfriend again?”
“What does that silly book Ron gave you advise you to do?”
He broke away. “How do you know about that?”
“I have my sources. Let’s just say you’re on probation”and if you really want to get back into my good graces, then you won’t be doing anything that book recommends. Honestly, they could only come up with twelve ways to charm a witch?” she said jokingly.
“All right, I think I can handle that.”
She brushed his tousled bangs aside and gently touched the scar on his forehead with her fingertips. He squeezed his eyes shut, penetrated by her touch.
“Is it just a scar now,” she asked.
“Yeah, I think so. I hope so,” Harry replied. “I’m pretty sure all the twinges I feel now are only my own memories.” As he said this, the tears began to flow and soon he was sobbing, his chest heaving with repressed sorrow, crying for all the things he had lost, and gained.
He cried for a long time and Ginny just held him tight, cradling his head against her in an attempt to absorb all his shock and horror, repeating into his ear, “it’s over, Harry, it’s over. I love you, it’s over. All will be well.”
Finally, his emotion spent, Harry rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Ginny reached over and removed his glasses in order to dry them off with her wand.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime. How do you feel?”
“Tired.”
“Do you think you can sleep some?”
He nodded, his eyelids already feeling the pull of sleep.
“Will you stay with me?”
“Always.”
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