“Miss Granger, I wish to speak to Harry. Have you seen him this morning?” asked Dumbledore with a quiver of unsettledness in his voice as he slowly entered the common room.
Hermione was slightly taken back by the Headmaster’s unusual presence in the common room, especially at such an early hour, “Professor, Harry was with Ginny last night but I haven’t seen him since.”
There had to be a reason for Dumbledore’s somber demeanor. Logically, a small voice in her head was insightfully mumbling to her she should erase the protruding and triumphant smile on her face, one that originated involuntarily from the sheer excitement of hearing herself say Harry and Ginny together in the same sentence.
“Sir, what’s wrong?”
Before Dumbledore could reply, the portrait opened as Ginny trudged inside soullessly, draped awkwardly in Harry’s jacket, looking terribly disoriented. Her palm was numb from coldness; it was unclear whether she was numb from the winter winds or by having just been abandoned at the mountain top, a fact she was still desperately refusing to believe. Her only course of action was to reconcile all the righteous reasons behind his disappearance, mindfully ignoring those she did not want to hear, even though they were ringing loudly in her ears. Without knowing it, she was still clutching a piece of jigsaw puzzle, the one he inserted in her unconscious hand before he left, the final piece needed to complete Oliver’s puzzle of Angeline’s Café.
“Ginny, where’s Harry? Weren’t you with him?” Hermione sizzled surprisingly, studying the invisible air next to her, assuming innocently he was walking next to Ginny but merely hiding underneath his invisibility cloak because of the embarrassment of being caught by the Headmaster for sneaking out in the night. Could she also be in denial, choosing to disregard Ginny’s broken shadow?
“Ahh… so that’s why Harry wasn’t in his quarters all night,” Ron’s condescending voice echoed from the staircase as he slowly made his way down.
“You’re in big trouble if Mum finds out you two have been--” He quickly stopped his jokes after Dumbledore’s beard entered his view.
Ginny’s last chapter of hope in her heart dissolved into dust; Harry was not back at his quarters with Ron. It was her confirmation she did not want to hear. He was now as far away from her as she could possibly imagine, except she didn’t understand the reasons behind his departure. To her surprise, she was not crying. Perhaps she had used up her quota of tears for this lifetime.
“Sis, are you okay?” asked Ron worriedly.
“Miss Weasley. You were with Harry last night?” Dumbledore clarified.
“We went to the mountain top together… but I fell asleep,” Ginny recited emptily, as if she had practiced this speech a thousand times. “When I woke up, he was… gone.
“On my way down, I bumped into Hagrid and I rode with him back to the castle.”
“Did he mention anything… out of the ordinary? Did he say where he’s going?” asked Dumbledore, peering at Ginny’s bewildered state interestingly.
Ginny shook her head slightly, staring hollowly at the mistletoe atop the staircase.
“So where is Harry?” asked Hermione openly. “Did something awful happen to him?”
“I’m afraid… he’s no longer in the castle premises,” the Headmaster replied solemnly.
Both Hermione and Ron gasped at the shocking news, but Ginny just stood motionless, as if she had already anticipated his departure.
Dumbledore trudged towards Ginny carefully. She couldn’t help but recognize his somber footsteps; in uncanny fashion, they reminded her so much of the time he walked towards her in front of the hospital room to deliver the bad news about Harry losing his memory of her.
“Miss Weasley… I have something important about Harry… to inform you.
“Harry… regained his memory yesterday…”
Just like the last time, Ginny felt like the heels of her shoes suddenly crumbled underneath her as each word hammered her eardrums like arrows.
“The details of Aria Hannibal… and you… the dream curse… everything that had happened…”
His words dismantled whatever was left of Ginny’s already fragile foundations as Ron and Hermione stared at each other wordlessly.
“How? Professor?” demanded Hermione. She could not think of anything smart to say as her head was uncharacteristically boiling with all kinds of entangling possibilities. For once, she was unsure of her position, and whether she should be happy or upset about this revelation.
“Miss Granger, it doesn’t matter how he got his memories back. What’s important is… I believe he is…”
Dumbledore removed his spectacles and rubbed his weary eyes, “I know Harry more than he knows himself. I had asked him to wait for me this morning… so I can meet all of you together and explain everything... because I know it would be very difficult for him to accept what happened to him last year…
“I put a memory charm on him last year for this precise reason…
“He is punishing himself for everything that has happened... once again… blaming himself for everything. He must have decided that… running away is his only option.”
He breathed deeply and gazed at a teary Ginny, “I must convince you to understand why he did what he did, Miss Weasley.”
He placed both his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to focus exclusively on him, “Do you recall my conversation with Harry two years ago in this exact location, when all three of you were hiding underneath the invisibility cloak… secretly listening in… hearing him blame himself for all the bad things that have happened to you?
“Once again, he feels it is better for you if he is not in your life…
“Harry holds on to the fact that truly loving someone is selflessly doing what’s best for that person… and…
“He believes his running away is… for your best.”
Ginny shook her head speechlessly as everything from last night began to register for her. She now understood why Harry appeared very sad the entire time, and the hidden meanings behind his conversations about the elusive stars and fragile candle flames began to make sense. He was signaling to her that he would be gone. Her intuition was right; when she reopened her eyes, he was no more. Just like the clouds, they would ultimately eclipse the stars, as powerful as the stars were. Except she didn’t care about the stars. She only cared about Harry. Sadly, he was gone too.
She was disillusioned when she woke up this morning to find her lying alone on the mountain top, fully dressed, on a blanket void of his warmth. All she had that was his was his jacket and scarf. Seeing her blouse was buttoned up completely, she realized they became one only in her dream. Her wish did not come true; the fantasy vanished as soon as she opened her eyes. To her despair, she would rather stay drunk, and asleep, if that was the only way to prolong the fairy tale and be with him.
“I’m glad you’re shaking your head. I presume you’re disagreeing with his views regarding what’s best for you. That’s what I want to see,” said Dumbledore softly.
Just as Ron was about to volunteer his mouth, Dumbledore interrupted him clairvoyantly, “I know you want to help find Harry, all three of you, but I must ask that you remain in the safe premises of the castle.
“I will summon the Order to search for him at once,” Dumbledore disappeared out of the common room, leaving the three of them standing stoically, with only their thoughts to deal with.
“Men! Always running away… taking the easy route!” Hermione growled at Ron cheaply, recalling how he deserted her yesterday when she told him she was joining her family for Christmas. Ron simply shrugged his shoulders, unknowingly swallowing the blame for the behavior of half of the human population.
Just as Hermione was about to place her hand on Ginny’s shoulder, she dashed upstairs, hoping she could spare them the fresh batch of tears parked at the wings.
Ginny’s empty dormitory would welcome her with walls and ceilings of stars and moons flashing at her happily, as if they were mocking her. Apparently, her roommates were already gone and did not bother to switch off the star ceiling lighting kit she had left on from last night. The band-aid pale blue box was untouched, sleeping on her disheveled bed, still housing the locket and the bottle of bubbles he bought her.
“Why are you glowing as if nothing happened? There’s no one to shine for anymore,” she whimpered to the dancing stars and moon.
Seeing his jacket on her bed, her tears began to erupt. She realized she now possessed two of his jackets. The one on her bed was from the old Harry; he had given it to her at the picnic just before he lost his memory. The one she was wearing now was from the new Harry, and just like the last time, he would abandon her soon after giving it to her. To her tally, he had now abandoned her twice.
“Is this what you always leave behind for me?” she cried to the jacket on her bed.
She didn’t understand why she was crying, because she should be the expert at the feelings of being letdown by now, she wept to herself. After all, she was accustomed to gazing wishfully at her doorknob, hoping and praying Harry would open it, only to have her unanswered hopes spinning endlessly in the queue from day to night.
It was also a habit of hers to automatically wipe her tears when she would hear footsteps behind her door. She would assume they were Harry’s no matter how many times the sounds continued to either pass her by or that they belonged to someone else. Coincidentally, she was wiping her eyes now in response to a string of footsteps.
“Ginny, it’s Hermione…” she tapped at her door.
Disappointed, it was not the voice she had longed to hear. Once again, the footsteps behind her door belonged to someone else.
“Go away. Please, just leave me alone!”
Suddenly, the stars on her ceiling switched to a green color, reminiscent of Harry’s eyes, blinking at her.
“Did I already know your intentions to leave from the very beginning?” she whispered to the images painfully.
“Or… was it my fault to choose to ignore… the candle flame that had fizzled out… and the star that was eclipsed by the clouds, and still insist on trying to defy reality… so I can carry on the night as if it will never end… even though I knew I was fighting a losing battle… and that everything will be over when the night is gone…
“If you had made up your mind to leave me, but you were too afraid to tell me, I will understand and I won’t keep you. All I ask is… for you to stop with your subtle hints, thinking the truth will cause me pain, when… your allusions just hurt me even more…”
She ripped at the pockets angrily and discovered a piece of soggy parchment squished in one of them. Pulling it out to her horror, she recognized it immediately as she unfolded it. It was the paper airplane with which she wrote her painful story last year.
“Where did he get this?” Ginny halted her tears and choked as the words of the poem singed her eyes. It was the first time she read her own work since writing it by the lakeside last year, and all the pain she had endured at the time was now refreshed in her head.
After an excruciating run through of the poem, she paused at the last passage, because she vividly remembered she did not write it, since her quill was snapped in half at that point, when she pressed it too hard.
Recognizing the handwriting, she zoomed to her drawer and retrieved a small package, the birthday gift Harry gave her the previous year. That year, he gave her a corny note, stating that he was her gift, and that he was hers forever. Comparing the two messages on the parchments, she could clearly see that the handwriting was identical. Shaking all over her body, she couldn’t believe Harry would end up with her poem, and that he helped her to complete it. But she was still as disheartened as ever, because he had broken his promises, and they were the ones that mattered to her the most.
“Harry, you promised me last birthday… that you will always belong to me… and now you write in my poem that... you’ll always be by my side…
“But where are you now, Harry?
“What is always to you, Harry? A few months? One night?
“Because for me… always… means… FOREVER…” she shrieked defiantly as she buried herself into her bed.
***
“Oliver… Oliver…” Ginny was standing at his door in the North Tower, pounding it repeatedly with her fist, forgetting it was very late in the night, refusing to accept the fact he wasn’t answering. Suddenly, there were hoarse footsteps coming from the corner.
“Ginny, what are you doing here? It’s nearly midnight!” Oliver bawled, holding his broom. It was evident he had just returned from one of his nightly elusive searches for Yuriko.
“Oliver, I came to show you this,” she displayed him the completed puzzle, her voice unusually cheerful. “I found the last piece. Just want to show it to you,” she grimaced emptily as Oliver tentatively opened the door to his quarters, mumbling something inaudible. It was not clear whether he was mumbling about the faulty doorknob or Ginny’s uninvited visit.
“That’s very nice,” he yawned sarcastically. “But you could have waited until tomorrow. The puzzle is not going to disappear tomorrow.”
Ginny froze at his comments about things disappearing tomorrow; he had unknowingly hooked up her painful nerve, but he did not notice because he had just bent down, busily patting a piece of parchment into the bottom corner of the doorframe.
“Just in case the door slams shut on us again,” he garbled and invited her in reluctantly. “I don’t want you having to sleep in my bed again.
“It may start… some unnecessary rumors… and we wouldn’t want Harry to get upset…”
Ginny trudged her way to his desk and placed the portrait on it, trying to filter through Oliver’s pleasant words about Harry, “London truly has so many amazing buildings. I mean… Angeline’s Café is the perfect example. It’s just a coffee shop but look how beautiful it is.”
“Ginny, you came all the way here… in the night… to show me the puzzle and… now you want to discuss about nice buildings?” Oliver frowned confusedly as he untied his shoes.
She ignored him, maintaining her casual voice, “I heard a lot about the many landmarks. I want to see them all. Can you take me?”
“Shouldn’t Harry…” Oliver poked his head up curiously and stopped his words. He could sense the hollowness in her path, in vast contrast to the giggly girl from last night.
“What’s wrong?” he peered at her reddened eyes. “Is it Harry?”
“It’s funny how I told Hermione I want to visit all the fascinating landmarks in London,” she inserted evasively, dodging his question. “Now I understand why. It’s because I want to see the world with my eyes. I want to find out what I’m missing out on, and…
“Maybe… perhaps… find something… or someone… better for my life.”
She traced her fingers at the bright lights illuminating the coffee shop in the portrait, “But at the end of the day, I just can’t let go of what I have. The Burrow is no landmark. It has no bright lights… It’s modest… simple… small… my mum is screaming all the time…
“But I just can’t imagine myself living without it,” she sighed.
“Ginny, what is all this about?”
“It is the same reason why you keep wearing that ring around your neck. Am I right, Oliver?” she babbled verbosely. “You want to keep girls away, like the two we ran into at the coffee shop… because you can’t imagine yourself with anyone else other than Yuriko, just like I can’t imagine myself with another boy, no matter how hard I try.”
“Ginny, what’s going on?” he slipped into her monologue seriously, quickly taking advantage of the one second pause she had used to breathe.
“By the way, I think you should wear the ring on your finger,” she lectured erratically.
“Gin”“
“Some girls don’t look at boys’ adam’s apples. Hermione is a good example of such a girl, and as a result, they may get confused and they will still flock to you.”
“Gin”“
“Remember what you promised me? You said you’ll take me to the coffee shop?”
“Yes, but I thought--”
“Please don’t break your promise,” she suddenly muttered pleadingly.
“Gin”“
“Oliver, you know what this is?” she quickly returned to her babbling voice as she retrieved a medallion from her pocket and opened the lid. “According to Hermione, it’s an Amoré. The needle guides the holder to the person who resides in the holder’s heart.
“Harry is somewhere in that direction. Do you want to see where Yuriko is?”
“That is certainly… an interesting piece of magic,” he chuckled uncertainly. “Where did you get it?”
“He gave it to me for my birthday… and… I want you to have it,” she darted towards him and slammed it into his hands. “Maybe one night when you’re out there looking for her, it’ll help you.”
“I guess you have no use to it, now that you two are together. But I can’t take something he gave you for your birthday. That will be wrong. Harry won’t like--“
She suddenly lunged into him in tears, “Oliver, I’ll give you… anything! I’m willing to… give up everything! Whatever you want! Just give me back Harry…”
“Ginny! Stop! What’s going on?” he quickly steadied her and guided her to his bed.
“Harry left me last night and he ran away! He somehow thinks it’s good for me that he’s gone!
“He didn’t give me a chance to tell him how foolishly wrong he is! I don’t know what to do! I want to find him but Dumbledore will not allow it!
“Take the puzzle!” she shrieked madly. “Take the Amoré… Whatever you want…”
“GINNY! GINNY! Pull yourself together!” he shook her.
With her tears clogging her windpipe, she could no longer talk as she slouched on his bed despairingly. Looking for a solution as well as the tissue box, Oliver scrambled around his quarters and accidentally knocked his broom to the floor.
“Ginny, remember what I told you about Yuriko leaving me at the train station?” he handed her the tissue box tentatively. “I said it was equally as punishing for her, if not more, when she decided to leave me.
“You have to believe that Harry was feeling the same way as she did,” he retrieved his broom back to the upright position and suddenly found himself fixated on it. After a pause, his focus was stolen by the glimmer from the golden shine of the medallion in his hand. He then gazed at Ginny, who was still sobbing on his bed. In fact, during the time that he was tending to his broom, she managed to locate his favorite pillow, and she was smothering her face in it.
“Ginny, listen. It was Hermione who told you what this locket does, right?” Oliver sputtered as he carefully peeled the pillow away from her. Ginny nodded weakly.
“Good. She’s a reliable source. Now… do you want to find Harry?” he asked eagerly.
Ginny nodded again.
“In that case, that’s what we’ll do!” he immediately handed her back the locket.
“But how? Dumbledore--”
“Ginny, you forgot already? I’m a teacher’s assistant at Hogwarts. I can come and go as I please like the other teachers,” he schemed recklessly. “I see nothing wrong for me to take a student with me outside the castle… because… erm… I need help… hmm… transporting some very heavy school supplies.
“I have no choice but to take the best flyer from Hogwarts with me. You and Harry did win the flying competition after all. Since Harry is… out of commission at this moment… it makes sense that I take you to help me instead.”
Ginny’s neck stiffened and her back quickly straightened.
“Ginny, if you can come up with a better lie later, make sure to tell me! Because it’s not easy lying to Dumbledore,” he yanked her up.
“Okay… meet me at the castle gates with your broom in… ten minutes!” he ushered her out. “I’ll wait for you there! And don’t forget that magic locket!”
“Oliver, wait!” she grabbed his doorframe in time to stop her uncontrolled forward momentum. “I don’t want you to risk… losing your position here for me. What if Dumbledore”“
“Ginny, it’s no big deal! Don’t put too much into this! I did promise I’ll take you to the coffee shop. So think of it this way. On our way to finding Harry, I’ll take you there too.”
Before she knew it, she found herself sprinting back to her quarters to gather her broom, her wand, and a jacket. Everything was happening so quickly she did not have time to process it, and whether she should be doing this. But as promised, Oliver was keenly waiting for her at the gates.
“Hmm… a rather large jacket?” he smirked.
Ginny quickly stared at herself and noticed she was wearing one of Harry’s jackets. Amid the craziness, she had forgotten to check what she had retrieved out of her closet.
Oliver gazed at her deeply, “To which direction is that thing pointing now?”
She snapped open the cover and the needle was aiming poignantly to her left.
“Then left is where we’re heading then,” he mounted his broom before she held his arm appreciatively.
“Oliver… you… don’t have… to come with me.”
“Ginny, consider this as me making up to you for abandoning you at the competition,” he patted her hand reassuringly and floated to the skies.
Ginny smiled deeply and quickly hopped on her broom, following his trail.
“Thank you, Oliver.”
Ginny had expected that it would be very difficult to bypass the castle’s heightened defenses and leave the premises. Surprisingly, they encountered no obstacles in their paths. Flying side by side for what seemed like hours, no words were exchanged between them. Perhaps they were aware of each other’s wishes to remain silent, after having gone through three months of intense flying practices together. Throughout the journey, Oliver did nothing but followed Ginny as she held the medallion, diligently tracking the needle when suddenly, it snapped backwards.
“Oliver, he’s in this neighborhood!” she stopped alongside Oliver, who was glancing at the buildings underneath them, the concrete towers brightened by the morning sunrise. Without realizing it, they had traveled throughout the night.
“Perfect timing for us to sneak down to the ground before the muggles wake up!” he groaned, rubbing his growling stomach.
“Look, Ginny!” he pointed darkly. “St. Mungo’s Hospital is just below us! Do you think…”
A cold shiver spiked down Ginny’s spine, wondering terrifyingly if Harry indeed was in the last place she wanted to find him in.