Firelight imbued the Burrow’s tiny parlor with a sadness it had never possessed before; both the firelight, and the girl who sorrowed on the sofa, eyes gleaming with reflected flame. Her hair, by daylight crimson, glowed eerie blue in the fire Hermione had conjured earlier that evening. Ginny knew she had meant to help, to lessen the load of the grieving, but the cyan light made her home a cold and unfamiliar stranger, a stranger who failed to fend off memories, who welcomed them -- the demon dreams.

Her home was habited by the haunting dead, and the shadows cast by the flames in the hearth only served to remind her of just how strange everything felt now -- how strange things had felt since Harry had killed Voldemort three days ago.

Time passed in odd patterns, each day unbearably long, bleeding into the next. There had been so many meetings at the ministry, so many funerals, and visits to Hogwarts to assess damages and plan repairs -- not to mention all the minutes wasted trying to avoid reporters, officious vultures the lot of them.

But the nights – those were undoubtedly worse. In dreams the past compelled her, led her, offered violent visions of her mother dueling Bellatrix, of Fred splayed and beaten in the broken corridor, of Harry – dead.

“No,� Ginny said aloud, her voice hoarse with disuse, shivering as the image pressed itself upon her. Blinking it away, she gazed, round-eyed, into the depths of the fire, trying to burn it from her mind.

Ginny wished that it was only the dead teasing her heartstrings, making her cry silently whenever she managed to find a moment alone; but that wasn’t all, not nearly. Harry had been avoiding her – avoiding everybody, in fact – and Ginny was losing her last hope.

I thought that afterwards…. Ginny could not finish the thought. When she had seen him dead -- that was pain beyond endurance. But was tonight’s pain any better? Knowing that Harry was alive, and that he didn’t want her?

It was a childish yearning she had clung to for a year. What claim did she have on him, save a girlhood crush and a few stolen golden weeks? Why should he come back?

Why should he come back to a girl who hadn’t even been faithful?

Ginny slid off the couch and curled up closer to the heat, knotting her arms around her knees. It was June, and she felt chilled to the heart.

Just about ready to have a good cry, Ginny heard a footstep behind her and twisted her head around, praying that whoever it was wouldn’t be able to interpret the look in her eyes.

“Sorry,� said Charlie softly, stepping into the blue glow. “I was just going to put out the fire. I thought everyone had gone to bed.�

Ginny didn’t answer.

“You okay?�

She didn’t even bother to shake her head. Charlie knew quite well that she wasn’t. He had always been one of her more insightful brothers.

If only Ron or Percy had shown up, I might have been left in peace. As it was, Ginny knew Charlie wasn’t going to let his little sister sit alone, mourning in the dark.

Charlie strode across the tiny parlor and prodded the log in the fire with the iron poker, giving Ginny the time she needed to wipe her eyes. When he turned around again, she had put on an emotionless mask.

“Look,� Charlie began, “we all miss Fred. Do you want to talk?�

Ginny turned to ice at her brother’s words. Here she sat, fixed upon Harry, while her own brother, dead, occupied a dark, different, unexplored chamber of her heart.

Charlie was studying her expression now; her mask had been splintered, and her face was chalky blue as death.

“Ah,� he said. Ginny flinched at the tone of his voice; it was so elder-brotherly, so all-knowing. Charlie knew who was on her mind now. And he wouldn’t let her go without putting in his two knuts.

But Charlie said nothing as he slid to the floor beside Ginny, gazing into the fire. Minute after minute the silence stretched between them like cobwebs suspended from tree branches, glittering and delicate. Then, very gently, Charlie broke it.

“Can I tell you a Romanian folk tale, Ginny? I learned it on the dragon reserve.�

Ginny nodded, intrigued. Charlie had told her Romanian jokes and even some comical stories about his friends on the reserve, but he had never shared anything truly meaningful from his adopted culture before.

“It’s really a poem, an epic, written two hundred years ago. The Romanians love it. It’s called Luceafãrul.�

“Luceafãrul.� Ginny tested the unfamiliar name on her tongue and found that she liked it. “Okay. Go on.� She felt like a little girl again, pleading with her big brothers to entertain her. It felt good to go back to something so simple after all the complexity of the past year.

Charlie grinned. “Luceafãrul is what the Romanians called the planet Venus in the ancient days. Anyway, it begins with the princess Catalina. Her hair, it was said, shone red-gold like the star Aldebaran.�

“Don’t embellish,� Ginny interrupted, feeling more like her childhood self with every passing moment. Only this was different. When she was younger she has always wanted to hear bedtime stories about her. Now she wanted a story that had nothing to do with anything -- something separate from her life -- a way to forget her own story in someone else’s.

“No red-haired princesses.�

“I’m not making this up,� said Charlie seriously. “Catalina had red-gold hair, and she lived in the tallest tower of the castle because she loved to look at the stars.�

Ginny refused to react to these words. Just because she, too, had looked to the stars on those nights when her longing for Harry had been too much – that didn’t mean she was anything like Catalina.

“One night,� Charlie continued, “in her dreams, a dark-haired boy visited her. His name was Luceafãrul. He was the Morning Star, and he loved her. And she said she loved him.�

Ginny had never even done that much, never given her word to Harry. Her heart, yes – but that hadn’t mattered when he was gone. She had missed him too much, she was lonely, she had needed someone…and he had been there. That hadn’t anything to do with hearts or words; only loneliness.

“Night after night Luceafãrul came to Catalina in her sleep, and they were both very happy. Catalina turned away all the princes who came to see her and told everyone that she loved only the Morning Star. But eventually seeing Catalina only in dreams was not enough to satisfy Luceafãrul. He left to find a way to attain a human form. And in the meantime, Catalina got distracted. She began to forget.�

Ginny wondered what Catalina had forgotten first – his hands? His smile? His eyes? No, his eyes were the one thing she had always remembered. Even when she had been disloyal, she had been thinking of Harry; even then he had her heart.

“Catalina fell in love with one of the boys in the palace. But Luceafãrul returned and discovered it. When Catalina saw him and begged him to come to her, he refused. He returned to the sky, and she watched him for the rest of her life from her tower, wanting him. But he never would come down again.�

“Not ever?� Ginny asked, like a little girl disbelieving an unhappy ending.

“No.� Charlie shook his head. “He couldn’t forgive her.�

“Oh.�

Ginny didn’t want to cry. She wanted only to slide in among the blue flames and let them lift her up into the night, into the stars. She wanted to ask Luceafãrul what Catalina had to do to win him back. She wanted to know the price of forgiveness.

“It’s a heavy story, Ginny. I’ll let you think on it. Go to bed soon, okay?� Charlie said, standing up and bending down again to kiss his sister on the crown of her head. “G’night.�

“Night,� Ginny murmured.

The stairs creaked once and then the house went silent. Ginny shivered. She was practically in the flames by now, and still it wasn’t enough.

Why had she done it? She loved Harry, thought of him every day, and yet she had kissed somebody else. And now he wouldn’t come to her. It didn’t make a difference that he was unaware of what she had done, or that he hadn’t talked to anyone at all for the last three days. She was supposed to be different -- he was supposed to talk to her, soonest, longest, and always. She took it as a sign, him keeping his distance; it was her punishment. There would be no forgiveness.

She did not count the passing minutes, but they were long. And then she heard footsteps again, and knew who they belonged to. It was as though she had been expecting him all along.

“Ginny.�

She didn’t look behind her. She didn’t have to.

“Harry.�

He sat down next to her, so close. Ginny fought her heartbeats, trying to quiet them. Her body ached for Harry’s heat, but at the same time she wanted to stand up and run. The battle made her tremble.

She could feel Harry’s eyes on her face -- a blue-shadowed face, pale and sad -- seen by those eyes that she had always remembered.

“I want to explain – everything,� said Harry. “I’ve been trying to figure out for three days how I’m going to say it. Because you deserve to know it all, Ginny. And besides that, I want to tell you. I have to. You…�

He stopped, turning so that his face and his body were towards her. She stayed facing the flames.

“You were what got me through it. You’re the one I thought of right before I let Voldemort kill me. Ginny, you’re it. And I’m sorry it took me three days to say so.�

“I’m not it.�

Ginny wasn’t crying, but the shivering was worse than tears somehow.

“I can’t be. I didn’t wait for you. I –�

Those eyes…

“– I kissed someone else.�

Harry said nothing for a moment. And Ginny dared to look at him, because she had to see his face, had to really look into his eyes for the first time in almost a year.

He was simply looking at her; no questions, no accusations, simply looking.

And then Ginny understood. He expected her to say something more.

“I kissed someone else,� she repeated. And then the words began to bubble to her mouth unbidden, fast and rushing. “He was just there, and he’d always been nice to me, and I was always thinking of you, and we were in the D.A. together but times were hard, everybody was scared, and I was alone, it hurt, you know? And then one night he saw me off on my own and he asked if I was okay and something in me just…cracked.�

“Ginny…� Harry began, but she had to finish.

“I love you, Harry. I kissed him because I loved you. We both knew it, too. He knew who I was thinking of. But I understand if that changes things for you. I didn’t wait. I can’t be it.�

She looked back at the fire. Hermione’s charm was fading fast; the blue flames were crackling into midnight embers, losing their heat, dying down. It was so cold.

“Ginny, please look at me.�

Harry put a hand on her shoulder and Ginny was helpless. She looked.

“Most nights, when we were on the run, I took out the Marauder’s Map and stared at your dot for hours. Just stared at it. I knew you wouldn’t wait for me. I didn’t expect you to. I didn’t want you to. I thought I wasn’t going to come back.�

There was no accusation in his eyes. Ginny held his gaze, searching for a glimmer of anger, a flare of something other than...what was that look he was giving her?

“You kissing someone,� said Harry, glancing down for a moment, picking his words like berries of questionable ripeness. “I mean, I don’t like it, but honestly I thought it would be worse. I thought you might have had…boyfriends. I thought you would move on. I wanted you to move on, so you could be happy without me.�

Ginny shook his hand away, eyes wide.

“You thought I’d do that? You really thought I could just forget about you?�

For the first time, Ginny realized that Harry was shivering too. He looked at the dying flames as he spoke again.

“Yes. But you didn’t. One kiss…�

“And I was thinking of you.�

“I know.�

“I was always thinking of you.�

“Me too.�

“Harry,� she whispered, turning away from the fire at last.

He kissed her with trembling lips, hesitant and careful. Ginny burned. She pulled them back from the hearth, falling on the moon-bathed carpet. And Harry was beside her, kissing her, scalding her. There were no more shivers.

Ginny ran her hands through his dark hair, grown shaggy and wild during his wandering year. The light around them was white and smooth and calm, and so warm; the ice had gone from the air.

“Luceafãrul,� she whispered, smiling as Harry gave her a confused glance from behind his fogged glasses.

“What’s that?�

“Just something Romanian. A story. But it doesn’t matter. It isn’t our story.�

“Our story.� Harry grinned, wrapping his arms around Ginny and holding her close until their heartbeats settled into a single rhythm. “That sounds good.�

Outside, the night had ended, and on the horizon rose a darkling glitter -- the Morning Star.