“Ginny! Get down these stairs and help me with the potatoes. NOW, please!”
Ginny sighed and replaced her magazine dejectedly on her night table, dragging herself off of her bed and looking critically at her reflection in the mirror. Her Muggle sweatpants and t-shirt were mismatched and her hair was in a messy bun, but at this point, she didn’t really care what she looked like. She sighed again, slipped her feet into her favorite slippers, and went downstairs as slowly as possible.
When she reached the kitchen, her mother had already finished chopping potatoes, but that didn’t stop her from finding work for Ginny to do. Mrs. Weasley looked vaguely harassed as she handed Ginny a spoon and gestured to the gravy on the stove, and she immediately bustled over to the fireplace to check on the bread as soon as Ginny was properly set up with the gravy.
Mrs. Weasley was working extremely hard to make sure that Christmas eve dinner that night went smoothly. The entire family was turning up, and her mother was determined that the holiday should be as enjoyable as possible.
There was only one person who wouldn’t be arriving that day to enjoy the holiday. Harry was still off on his mission, wherever he was, searching for Bellatrix, and Ginny was still completely dejected that he wouldn’t be around for Christmas.
“Well, Ginny, I’m glad to see that you dressed so nicely for the arrival of your older brothers,” Hermione had looked up from the crossword puzzle she was doing on the table and decided to comment.
“Shut up,” Ginny snapped. “Why aren’t you doing any work?”
“Merlin’s beard, Ginny, relax,” she said, looking offended. “I don’t mean to insult you. And I did help your mum. She made me stop after I added too much cheese to that salad,” she finished, gesturing to a large bowl of greens on the counter. It did indeed have quite a lot of cheese on top.
Ginny frowned. “So if I mess something up, I’m out of here?”
“I suppose,” Hermione said. “But I wouldn’t if I were you. Your mum will go ballistic.”
Ginny stuck her tongue out at her and went back to the gravy. Stirring absentmindedly, she pictured what it would have been like if Harry was here…
Lost in wonderful and possibly R-rated fantasies, Ginny barely registered that Hermione was speaking again.
“You want a game of chess after you’re done?” she asked.
When Ginny didn’t answer, she continued. “Okay, how about we take walk down to the village?”
“Or,” she continued, smirking, “how about snogging Harry senseless?”
“What?” Ginny said dazedly, looking sharply up from the gravy.
“I knew that’d get your attention. I know that’s all you’ve thought about all holiday.”
“I’m just worried about him is all,” Ginny said.
“I know you are. But Harry will be fine. Trust me. He knows what he’s doing. He’ll be home soon,” Hermione said kindly.
“Easy for you to say,” Ginny said grumpily. “You’ve got your boyfriend around anytime you want.”
Hermione smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “I’m lucky.”
Ginny returned moodily to her work on the gravy, stirring with perhaps a bit more force than was strictly necessary. Hermione stared at her for another minute, looking concerned, but she soon returned to the contemplation of her crossword puzzle when it was clear that Ginny wasn’t in the mood for anymore chatting.
By six o’clock that evening, it seemed that the entire extended Weasley family and assorted friends and their families were gathered in the living room and kitchen of the Weasley household for a Christmas eve feast. A ham was sizzling in the oven, and Christmas carols played softly behind the sound of fourteen festive voices discussing everything from Quidditch to cooking recipes.
Bill and Fleur sat on the couch, their newborn son Beau wrapped in several blankets in Fleur’s arms. Beau was Ginny’s first nephew, and she loved him to pieces already, even though she had only met him in the last week that she had been home for Christmas. He was only a few weeks old, wrinkly and pink, with a tiny bit of strawberry blond fuzz on the top of his tiny head.
Charlie, his new girlfriend Tamber, Lupin and Tonks sat by the fire, laughing and holding mugs of hot cider. Mr. Weasley was stirring a pot of soup while his wife whizzed around the kitchen, fixing last minute preparations. Fred, George and Ron sat at the table, where George was apparently telling an extremely amusing story, because the three of them would periodically break into peals of raucous laughter, and Hermione would look pointedly at them with a slightly stony expression. She and Ginny were seated in the last two seats in the room, or rather, Hermione was seated in the last chair of the room, and Ginny had been left to curl gracelessly on the ottoman, staring absently into the fire.
Getting slightly bored with staring into the fire, Ginny got up and walked over to where Fleur and Bill were sitting.
“Hey, Ginny,” Bill said, grinning at her and pulling his finger out of little Beau’s grasp.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I hold Beau, Fleur? Please?”
Smiling serenely, Fleur placed the tiny boy in Ginny’s arms. “I am going to ‘elp your mother, Bill,” Fleur said, kissing the tip of her husband’s nose and striding over to the kitchen. Beau opened his little blue eyes and looked at Ginny, giving her a pink- gummed grin. Ginny and Bill both laughed, and Beau’s tiny hands grasped for Ginny’s necklace, a present from Harry for her birthday. She gently peeled his fingers from around it and tucked the chain under her shirt.
Suddenly, a loud popping noise came from somewhere nearby. Ginny spun around, nearly upsetting Beau from his perch on her lap, and causing him to begin wailing loudly. Charlie, Lupin, Tonks and Tamber jumped back from the fire, and most of Tonks’ cider ended up on the carpet.
“KINGSLEY!” Mr. Weasley yelled in surprise, staring at the head that had just appeared in the fire. It was indeed Kingsley Shacklebolt, looking anxious and harassed.
“Arthur, Tonks, I’m really sorry to have burst in right now, but there’s something I thought you should know right away, given your… er… personal connections with…” he trailed away, looking almost surprised at the number of people to whom he was speaking, as though he hadn’t quite noticed they were all there.
“Go on,” Tonks said quickly. “It’s fine to speak here.”
“I…” Kingsley hesitated. “I don’t know if… it has to do with Potter and…” He was staring pointedly at Ginny, and she knew immediately, and with a surge of anger, what was going on.
“Anything you have to say about Harry, you can say in front of me. I can handle it, thank you,” she said stiffly, rocking Beau so he would stop whimpering.
Kingsley shrugged and turned back to Mr. Weasley and Tonks, who had moved to kneel in front of the fire, their knees in Tonks’ cider stain.
“Fine, here’s the story,” he said, taking a deep breath. “We got a message from some of the Hogsmeade inhabitants a while back that they had heard all kinds of banging and yelling in the Hog’s Head one evening. We went to investigate and found a bunch of unconscious ex- Death Eaters and civilians, and the whole place swimming in mead. When we interrogated the witnesses, we found out that both Potter and Bellatrix had been involved in the fight, but no one could tell us where either of them went after the battle, so we started looking for them right away”“
“Hold on!” Ginny interrupted. “You didn’t tell us that Harry had been in a battle? Don’t you think that’s the kind of information everyone in this room would like to know?”
Kingsley frowned at her. “There was no need. There was nothing to suggest that Potter wasn’t perfectly fine. We didn’t want to worry you,” he said, and, seeing that Ginny was about to comment again, quickly continued.
“We finally captured Bellatrix this morning. We’ve been interrogating her all day, and she finally told us that she tortured Potter to extreme extents during the battle, but she doesn’t know what became of him. Veritaserum proved she told the truth. Potter may be in serious danger.”
Ringing silence filled the room after he finished. Ginny felt suddenly short of breath when the full implication of Kingsley’s words hit her.
“We have to find him. Now! He could’ve been out there for months. He could be dead!” She handed Beau to Bill and was halfway out of the room to find her cloak when her mother grabbed her shoulder.
“Ginny! No! You can’t go looking for Harry now. What if there are more Death Eaters around? I forbid it,” she said.
“Let me GO!” Ginny said desperately, wrenching her shoulder out of her mother’s grip.
“Ginny, calm down,” Hermione said from across the room.
“Yes,” Kingsley agreed immediately. “This is why I didn’t want to talk about it in front of someone so… personally attached to Potter.”
Ginny took a deep breath and tried to calm her fearful, racing heart. “So I’m supposed to do nothing?” she said scathingly. “I’m supposed to let the boy- the man- that I… I love… just die?”
“No,” Kingsley said, sounding irritated. “We’ll be looking for him, of course. I just thought you might all want to know. I came here out of courtesy, Ginny,” he said, his voice gentler now. “I just wanted you all to know what was going on.”
He left with another pop, and Ginny fell dejectedly onto the ottoman. Hermione grabbed her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly, but Ginny could not be reassured. For several minutes, no one spoke. Finally, Lupin opened his mouth as if to say something, but at that moment, Ginny pulled herself up and went upstairs without waiting to hear what he would say, and he closed his mouth rather resignedly.
Up in her room, Ginny collapsed onto her bed, staring lethargically up at the ceiling, contemplating the difficulty of her stupid noble boyfriend. She squeezed the necklace he had given her and closed her eyes, as if she could bring the experience back just by remembering.
Her birthday had come just a month after her recovery from the war had finally finished. Her renewed relationship with Harry had been blossoming ever since he had rescued her in the forest. She hadn’t really been expecting much for her birthday, but he had surprised her…
The sun shone brightly on Ginny’s closed eyes as the morning dawned. She thought she could stay forever in her warm bed and never get up, but there was a knock on her door, and she had to sit up.
It was Harry, carrying a small package wrapped in tissue paper and grinning from ear to ear.
“Hi,” he said. “Happy seventeenth birthday.”
She smiled at him and got out of bed, walking over to hug him tightly. “Good morning,” she said, her words muffled because she had buried her face in his shirt. She turned her gaze upward to those startlingly green eyes she loved so much, and Harry smiled even wider, if that was possible, and kissed her gently on the lips. They broke apart after only moment, and just as Ginny was about to kiss him a second time, he stopped her.
“Don’t you want to see what I got you?” he said mischievously, but there was hint of anxiety in his tone, as if he wasn’t quite sure he’d picked the right thing.
“Harry, you didn’t have to”“ she began, but he cut her off with another chaste kiss.
“But I wanted to,” he said. “And after all, you do come of age today. Here.”
He handed her the package, and she pulled off the pale paper to reveal a small velvet box. Inside was a tiny green crystal heart on a delicate golden chain.
“Harry!” she said, shocked. “This is… this is beautiful. Thank you.”
“I’m really, really glad you like it. Hermione helped me pick it out.”
“It’s amazing,” she whispered. “I’ll never be able to find you something so great.”
“I know something that gets pretty close,” he said, grinning playfully at her.
“What?” she asked, and Harry leaned down and kissed her, pressing his lips gently to hers at first, but deepening the kiss slowly until every inch of her body had curved into his, her lips pressed against his mouth and her hands feeling every inch of his back, reaching up under his thin t- shirt.
“That gets pretty close,” he breathed when they broke apart, and kissed her again…
Ginny was disturbed from her fantasy continuation of the memory, in which, instead of being interrupted by a nosy older brother, as had really happened, she and Harry were quite alone. Ron was knocking on her door, and she jerked her head back to reality.
“Come in,” she said, wondering what on earth he could want.
“Ginny,” he said the moment he came in, “did you mean what you said? About being in love with Harry?”
“Yes,” Ginny said defensively. She was almost sure that Ron was about to start berating her for her so- called “juvenile fantasies”, but at the moment, she did not particularly care.
Ron didn’t speak for moment. He seemed to be trying to think of something to say.
“I’m okay with that,” he said finally.
“What?” Ginny said, completely taken off guard.
“I think you and Harry really are in love,” he said, his voice a bit stronger. “And I just wanted to tell you that Harry’s going to be fine. I know it.”
“How?”
“Listen, I know him really well. I know how to tell what he’s thinking. The whole time we were out fighting Voldemort, he was determined to come back to you. I’m sure it’s the same way now. I know he’ll come back for you,” Ron said, watching his sister carefully.
Ginny stared at him silently. She was worried about Harry, and nothing Ron could say would convince her to feel otherwise, but he did have a point. If anyone knew all about Harry, it would be Ron.
“Ron!” Ginny said, suddenly inspired. “You can find him! Please, go look for him. There’s no Quidditch practices for a while now, I know your team’s training schedule. Please go look for him. The Ministry can’t do it as well as you!”
“Ginny…” he said, looking unhappy.
“Please, Ron, say you will. For me, please?”
“Fine,” said Ron, resigned. He turned to leave her room. “I’ll leave tomorrow…”
“Ron?” Ginny said, stopping him. “If he’s having rough time when you see him, just… just tell him to read my letter.”
The Hardest Thing by smiley10792
Chapter Notes: Again, I am a bad, bad, bad author. I know this story has been neglected for several weeks, but here's the next chapter, longer than ever, for you all to enjoy. Nothing I could say could possibly justify it taking so long (although I hope you all checked out my contest entry, Only Those Who Believe). Just enjoy, and remember: I am not the brilliant creator of this universe!