A Past Reclaimed by nuw255
Chapter Notes: Harry and Ginny exchange Christmas surprises, but will they be pleased with the outcome?
Knock, knock, knock!
Harry awoke to the sound of someone pounding on his bedroom door.
Knock, knock, knock!
He groaned as he sat up and put on his glasses. Christmas morning had come far too quickly - a glance at the luminous hands of the clock next to his bed confirmed that it had only been two short hours since he had made it back upstairs. After hauling himself to his feet and stretching languidly, he crossed the room to open the door.
“I thought it might be you,” he murmured, smiling sleepily at the sight of Ginny, clad in her pajamas and a heavy cloak, waiting just outside the door. Her eyes shone with excitement and anticipation, and he couldn’t help thinking that she looked absolutely beautiful.
“Good morning to you, too,” she laughed. “Listen, can I talk to you out in the garden for a bit before everybody else gets up?” She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet and wringing her hands, excitement and a bit of nervousness practically bubbling out of her.
Harry shrugged. “Sure; just let me grab my cloak.”
Ginny began tapping her foot impatiently while he pulled his cloak out of the closet. As soon as he had it in hand, she grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him down the stairs.
“Ginny! What’s gotten into you?”
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” she said simply.
“Other than my Christmas present, you mean?” Harry asked.
“Yep.”
As they passed the first floor landing, Harry gathered his courage and said, “I’ve got a surprise for you, too.”
“Well, then I’m doubly glad I got you up before everybody else,” Ginny replied with a wink. They stopped in the kitchen just long enough to pull on their boots before stepping out into the crisp December air.
“So?” Ginny asked as soon as they were outside. “What’s your surprise? Oh, wait; let me go first!”
Harry laughed happily at her enthusiasm. “Go ahead.”
“I-” Ginny paused to take a deep breath and her bright smile faded a bit as she began again. “Harry, I- I fancy you.”
Harry smiled warmly at her. “I know,” he said softly.
Ginny shook her head. “No, what I mean is... I trust you. I’m not afraid anymore.”
“That’s good,” Harry replied as he pulled her into a warm embrace and held her close to him, “because it means I won’t feel like I’m trying to manipulate you when I tell you my surprise.” He stopped talking as he just enjoyed the way it felt to hold her close.
“Well?” Ginny asked expectantly after he was silent for a moment. “What is it?”
Harry sighed dramatically. “I’m not really sure I should tell you,” he replied in the most serious voice he could manage.
“Why not?” she demanded, her brown eyes flashing with sudden anger as she pulled away from him. Those eyes were so alive; just looking at them made his heart pound.
“Because I wanted to get that reaction out of you,” he answered with a grin. “You’re so pretty when you’re angry.”
“Prat,” she laughed, swatting him on the arm. “I’m serious, Harry. Every minute you waste gets us one minute closer to Ron waking up and ruining our chance to be alone.”
Harry nodded and, taking a deep breath, asked, “Do you remember the first time you saw me?”
“Of course,” Ginny answered, surprised at the sudden change in the conversation. “I was ten, you were eleven. You were trying to figure out how to get onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters.”
“I remember too,” he said very quietly.
Ginny stared at him, and he saw her eyes widen as she realized the significance of his words. “Everything?” she whispered.
Harry nodded.
“How?”
“Dumbledore and Hagrid came last night and reversed the Memory Charm. Hagrid embedded the broken pieces of Umbridge’s wand in an umbrella, just like he did with his own wand when he was expelled. Dumbledore taught him the counter-charm, and he used it on me at two-something this morning.”
“Hagrid did it?” Ginny asked in disbelief.
“That was your mum’s reaction, too,” Harry chuckled. “Dumbledore said Hagrid’s the only person who knows how to use a broken wand like that, and it’s a skill that would take years to learn. It was a lot quicker to just teach Hagrid the counter-charm.”
“How- how well do you remember?” she asked weakly.
“It’s weird, really; it all seems sort of... distant, I guess, but I remember everything I’d forgotten as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.” He paused for a moment before adding, “And speaking of what I remember, I also remember exactly how I feel about you.”
Ginny’s face fell, and she took a small step back. “It’s okay, Harry,” she said softly as she shook her head. “I guess I always knew it wouldn’t last past you getting your memory back.” She laughed bitterly. “I’m just Ron’s baby sister, right? The little girl who was so stupid that she let herself be possessed by-”
Mortified by the realization that he had given her completely the wrong impression, Harry cut her sentence short by doing the only thing he could think of at the moment: he grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her. Ginny’s body went rigid.
Relax, he thought desperately. Please relax. Ginny remained rigid in his arms, leaving him no choice but to pull away. She stood frozen in place, her brown eyes wide with shock. Harry swore under his breath. He was such an idiot! He should have talked to her, explained things to her. Instead, he had to go and act like the world’s biggest prat and throw himself at her.
Say something, Harry silently begged. Anything. Slap me or hex me or... something! He looked pleadingly at her, but her eyes held no emotion - only shock.
“Ginny, listen to me,” he said at last, unable to bear the silent tension any longer. “I really do fancy you. I have my memory back; I remember everything I ever knew about you, and it doesn’t change a thing. I still want to be with you.”
Ginny backed away, shaking her head as tears began forming in the corners of her wide eyes, which still stared disbelievingly at Harry. “Stop,” she whispered. “I know what’s happened, Harry. You fell for the girl you saw in your dreams for all those months, the girl that gave you hope while you were away at that awful school.” She sniffled a little. “I’m not that girl, Harry, no matter how much we both might want me to be. It could have just as easily been another girl’s face in those dreams: Hermione’s, or Cho’s, or even Luna’s. It was just pure chance that it was mine - after all, up until you lost your memory, you’d never noticed me as anything but Ron’s baby sister or the idiot girl who needed saving from a diary during your second year.”
“That’s not true,” Harry said in a quiet but forceful voice. Thankfully, this statement was enough to stop Ginny’s rant. He let out a slow, frustrated breath while running both hands through his mop of black hair. “Ginny, just because I remember everything from my first five years at Hogwarts doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about how close we’ve gotten since I came back. But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll tell you a little story. You know how I said that I remember everything Umbridge wiped out as clearly as if it had happened yesterday?”
Ginny gave a hesitant nod.
“Then let me tell you what was going through my mind when I was on my way back to Privet Drive after my fifth year.”
Ginny didn’t move. She just stood there, staring at him with eyes that were unusually bright with the tears she refused to allow to fall.
Taking her silence to mean she was willing to listen, Harry began to speak. “The ride from King’s Cross to Little Whinging always took forever, but that day it seemed to take even longer. I remember I was looking out the window, but I wasn’t really seeing anything. In my mind, all I could see was Sirius falling through that veil in the Department of Mysteries. I just sat there fuming. I kept telling myself that I blamed Snape, since he had ignored me when I told him that Sirius was in danger, but deep down, I knew it was really my fault. My godfather, the closest thing to a parent that I’d ever known, was gone forever because of me.”
Harry’s voice had taken on a wistful quality, and he shook himself before going on. “Obviously, that was really depressing to think about, and I knew Sirius well enough to know that he wouldn’t want me moping around and hating myself - even if that’s exactly the sort of thing he did a lot of the time. So, I decided to think about my friends instead. As usual, Ron and Hermione hadn’t hesitated for a second before following me into danger.” He shook his head and chuckled to himself. “Sometimes I really wonder about their sanity. The problem was, when I thought about them, images flashed through my mind of Ron being attacked by that brain, and Hermione being hit by whatever that purple curse was that Dolohov used on her. It just kept replaying over and over, sometimes in slow motion. Both of them nearly died, and knowing that I was to blame just made me feel worse.
“Next, I tried thinking about Neville and Luna. I thought about how brave Neville had been, but then I saw his broken nose and snapped wand in my mind. I thought about Luna and how, for all her strangeness, she turned out to be a big contributor in the battle. Then I remembered watching her fly through the air and smash her head against a desk.
“Obviously, thinking about those two wasn’t making me feel any better, either, so I finally turned to the last person who went with me to the Ministry: Ginny Weasley, Ron’s baby sister, as you like to put it.” He smiled slightly.
“You’re right to think that I had always looked at you as the blushing little girl I rescued from the Chamber of Secrets, but I want you to know that I never thought you were an idiot. As I thought about you that day in the car, though, I started seeing something else. I thought about how fiercely you had refused to be left behind. I remembered the way your hair looked when it flew out behind you as we ran through the Hall of Prophecies, and the way you had refused to let a broken ankle stop you. It should have depressed me just like thinking about the others had, but it didn’t.” He laughed softly. “Instead, I suddenly found something very attractive about the girl I was thinking about.
Ginny still hadn’t reacted to his narrative, and Harry felt his stomach beginning to churn with nerves as he plunged ahead. “Naturally, I didn’t know how to react to that line of thinking. For a minute I wondered whether it wasn’t disrespectful to Sirius’ memory to be thinking about a girl so soon after his death, but then I realized that, if I was honest with myself, I had to admit that Sirius’ idea of how to honor his memory would probably involve me, several girls, and a large case of Firewhisky.” At this comment, Ginny gave a half-hearted chuckle. Heartened, Harry cleared his throat nervously and pressed forward.
“After that, I couldn’t stop thinking about you for the rest of the ride home. I mean, I felt like a bit of an idiot for not having noticed you before, even though I’d known you for years. I remember thinking that it was just my luck that I would start fancying you right after you had stopped feeling that way about me. Plus, you had just started going out with Dean, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it anyway. Five minutes later, Umbridge Obliviated me, but the point is that I was thinking about you as much more than Ron’s baby sister before I lost my memory. You were the only thought that actually made me feel better that day, and that’s saying a lot. So, now you know. If you still don’t want anything to do with me, I’ll accept your decision,” Harry concluded. “I may not like it, but I’ll accept it.” He held his breath.
Ginny blinked. It seemed to Harry that that was the first time she had blinked since he’d kissed her. She took a slow, shaky breath, but did not break eye contact. “You really mean all that?” she asked in a voice that was so weak, Harry had to read her lips to be sure of what she was saying. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I’m sure,” he whispered.
Ginny stepped forward quickly, closing the gap between them and throwing her arms around his neck. “I trust you, Harry,” she murmured into his chest. “Really, I do.” For several minutes they stood there clinging to one another, as her quiet tears of relief soaked into Harry’s cloak. After her breathing returned to normal, she pulled back just far enough to look up into his face, and laughed.
“What?” Harry asked, relieved to see her smiling. “Is there something on my face?” He lifted a hand and began furiously rubbing at the side of his nose.
This only caused Ginny to laugh harder. She grabbed his wrist and, still giggling, replied, “No, it’s not that. I was just thinking about how long I’ve dreamed of you kissing me, and then when you finally did, I completely ruined it.” She laughed again as the embarrassment set in and she began to blush.
Harry didn’t know how to respond, so he simply stood there, his arms around her waist and his eyes gazing into hers.
Suddenly, Ginny cleared her throat. “Do you think maybe-” she hesitated, “-maybe I could... have another go?” Her blush deepened, but she didn’t look away.
“On one condition,” Harry replied with just a hint of a smirk.
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh? And what might that be?”
“You have to let me do this first.” Raising his hands to her face, he gently wiped the tears from her cheeks.
Ginny grinned at him. “Making sure you don’t confuse me with Cho?” she asked innocently.
“Actually, yeah. That memory’s still just as fresh as the others, and I don’t want to be distracted by awkward memories of some other girl. I want to be able to concentrate on you.”
“Are you concentrating?” she whispered as she slipped her hands behind his neck and began pulling him toward her.
Harry quickly wet his lips, which had suddenly gone very dry, and made a sound in the back of his throat that he hoped she would understand to mean, “Yes.” Then their lips met, and time stood still. The sensation was the polar opposite of what he had felt when Ginny had been resisting. Earlier he had felt nothing but panic, and kissing an unwilling girl had proven about as satisfying as kissing his bedroom door. Now, though, he was amazed at how soft her lips had become, and his arms slipped around her waist of their own accord, pulling her closer. When she slowly pulled away a minute later - or was it only a second later? Or an hour? - she looked up at him and smiled.
“Better?” she asked.
Harry, temporarily unable to speak, just nodded while grinning stupidly and then pulled her in for another kiss. He didn’t know how long they had been outside in the frigid garden, completely wrapped up in each other, when Ginny finally pulled away.
There was hesitance and a bit of worry in her eyes when she looked up at him this time. “I don’t want to ruin the mood or anything, Harry, but... I’d feel ridiculously selfish if I didn’t ask.” She paused to draw a long breath. “Are you okay? I mean, with everything that happened right before you disappeared....”
Harry smiled sadly and nodded. “I really am. I mean, I’ll always miss Sirius, but when my entire memory came back at once the way it did, a lot of things got put into perspective. Sirius was miserable; he was constantly on the run, and then he was cooped up in that gloomy house, which was even worse. If we’re honest with ourselves, his chances of being cleared were almost nonexistent with the way the Ministry’s being run. He was basically going to be miserable for the rest of his life. Now, though, he’s with my mum and dad, and they can spend the rest of eternity pranking Wormtail.”
Ginny responded with a sad smile of her own. “When did you start sounding so mature?” she asked.
Harry shrugged. “I’ve learned a lot about being grateful for what I have over the past year-and-a-half.” He leaned closer to her as he whispered, “Right now I’ve got you out here with me while the rest of your family’s still asleep, and I’m very grateful.” Their lips met again, and several minutes passed before they broke apart, grinning, breathing heavily and resting their foreheads against one another.
“I love you, Ginny,” Harry whispered. The words escaped his mouth before he even realized what he was saying, but as they registered in his brain he realized that he knew without a doubt that they were true.
Ginny shivered against him, and somehow he knew that it wasn’t from the cold. “That was something different this time,” she whispered.
“What?” Harry asked.
“Whatever you just said in Parseltongue. It was different from what you usually say. Deeper, somehow.”
Harry, who had thought he had been speaking English, paused for a long moment to consider his options. “You’re right,” he whispered at last. “It was different.”
“What did you say?” Ginny asked. Her voice was soft, yet full of curiosity.
“Up to now, I’ve said a few different things, like, ‘I’m falling for you,’ and, ‘You’re beautiful.’”
“And this time?”
Alarm bells started going off inside Harry’s head. He couldn’t do it. It was too soon. “I don’t think I’m ready to say,” he muttered. Something in Ginny’s eyes told him he didn’t have to explain; she knew.
“Can you say it to me again?” she asked quietly as she began leaning slowly toward him.
Harry heard the hissing sounds of Parseltongue as he whispered, “I love you, Ginny.” She shivered against him as their lips met in a slow, gentle kiss.
“We’d better get back inside before somebody comes looking for us,” Ginny murmured reluctantly as she slipped out of Harry’s embrace and led him by the hand back into the kitchen. After they had removed their boots, she gestured toward her tear-streaked face and said, “I need to run upstairs and wash up. Do you think you could make some hot chocolate for us in the meantime?”
“No problem,” Harry answered with a wide smile.