This Christmas Eve, snow covered the ground and filled the sky so that everything Ginny saw as she looked out her bedroom window was white. The monotony of snow clouds was peaceful even though it hadn’t changed in days. The gentle cascade of lacy snowflakes reminded her of the days she used to catch them in her eyelashes, the tiny crystals melting on her red cheeks, flushed with laughter. She still liked to chase the snowflakes, but she didn’t laugh as much anymore, and sometimes they froze like glass on her cold skin.
Tearing herself from the window, Ginny tiptoed across the creaky wooden floors, careful not to wake her still-sleeping company in the next room. It was still dark, but sleep didn’t come easily. This morning reminded her of those many years at the Burrow, when Christmas had meant presents and sweets, and she hadn’t even thought of the work it took to procure them. Maybe she had been naïve then, but now, some odd mixture of obligation and love had made the work seem worth doing... Like a mother, she thought. Like a mother, but twice as hard.
On her way down the hall, she pushed the next door open, just to see him sleeping. It was the easiest thing to do “ far easier than waking moments, when every movement was a reminder that things weren’t okay “ and, like the snow, something about seeing his face so calm and unchanging gave her comfort. She wished that her memory could be still like his, could simply reject the incoming information, forget about silly accidents six years past... But she didn’t want to be like him “ she wanted him to be like her, to remember, and then to move forward, but he was caught in an eternal, unchanging present, while she was stuck in the past.
But one lesson that Ginny had learned from her mother was that the easiest way to start forgetting was to start cooking. It was hard to think about dismal things when brewing soups and making breads, caring for those still here to need your help. She danced a little waltz around the kitchen as she completed the morning’s rituals, the smell of warm blueberry muffins taking up the steps in the air around her. She had carefully measured and mixed the ingredients, but pure love came out of the oven, and she carried the tray upstairs.
Ginny walked into the occupied bedroom, but this time she didn’t try so hard to be quiet, and a pair of groggy eyes opened to acknowledge her entrance. “Good morning, Harry,” she gently crooned. “Did you sleep well last night?”
Harry sighed as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Yeah,” he answered, taking a muffin off the tray.
“Tomorrow’s Christmas, you know,” Ginny reminded him, sitting on the bed beside him and running her fingers through his hair. “When you finish your breakfast, you can come downstairs and help me decorate.” Just like a mother, Ginny reflected as she listened to herself speak.
“Really?” Harry asked, not wanting to show his excitement, but betrayed by his widening eyes. “Is it Christmas already?”
“Almost, but you’ll have to eat your breakfast first. Then we’ll go downstairs and we’ll decorate the tree, okay?”
“All right,” Harry answered as he ate another muffin.
***
Ginny ate her breakfast in silence, staring at the window. The curtains were closed, and while she knew it wouldn’t make too much of a difference, she got up and opened them, seeing nothing but white outside, a view not too unlike the curtains themselves. “We should go outside later,” Ginny said to Harry, but she didn’t move. “It’ll be fun.”
Harry didn’t respond, and Ginny gathered the plates on her way out the door.
It was too much to hope for recovery, she knew. It had been six years since Harry defeated Voldemort. For some reason she didn’t think she’d ever understand, his memory had been marred in the war, and he didn’t seem to remember anything anymore. Not his friends, not Voldemort, not the thought of his parents that had kept him going for so many years... Not even my name, she thought for the thousandth time. God, how does he keep living?
She had tried so many times these six years to conjure some memory of herself within the blank corridors of Harry’s mind, something to create a bond between them, but Harry never remembered the stories she told him, and eventually, she quit trying. There was no Gryffindor common room anymore, no kisses and too-early goodbyes, and trying to tell Harry that such was his past was a frustrating endeavor she promised never to try again. She knew he wanted good memories, and to tell him foreign stories made him feel robbed. But it broke her heart to see him quit thinking, to see him revert to the thoughtless activities of childhood because it was easier to bear than adult reality. What was life without memories? What was life without a past?
Hurriedly cleaning the kitchen, Ginny waited for Harry to come downstairs. She made a few nervous adjustments to the folds of her skirt, but taking a deep breath, she sat down and didn’t move for a long time.
Ginny thought it might possibly have something to do with her nerves, but Harry seemed to be taking a strangely long time. In fact, she no longer heard his footsteps shuffling around on the old wooden floors overhead, and, though she knew he could take care of himself, her heart froze for a second in her chest as she fearfully imagined the worst. It was uncanny to her how she had turned into her mother over the years.
But the feeling grew stronger as Harry didn’t come down. When she could no longer stand the uncertainty, she climbed the stairs and pushed open Harry’s door. Harry was sitting on the floor with his back to Ginny, and she asked, trying to hide her fear, “Are you all right?”
Harry turned around without getting up. He looked a bit confused, but he answered, “Yes. I’m killing bugs.” He turned around and zapped another spider with his wand.
“Harry, don’t you remember?” she asked, and immediately cursed herself for her careless word choice. “Tomorrow’s Christmas! You’re going to help me decorate!”
This time, Harry turned around and stood up. “Christmas?” he asked, and Ginny remembered their conversation this morning. He was pulling her into his eternal present, as she repeated herself once again.
“Yes. Now let’s go downstairs.”
She grasped his hand as they descended the stairs. She always told herself that it was a reminder for Harry, that the gesture kept him aware of his sense of purpose, but a gesture couldn’t explain why her heart jumped every time his fingers clasped around her own.
“Here we go.” Ginny led Harry to a small box of ornaments beside a large fir tree that Ginny had conjured last night. “I want you to put these,” she handed him the box, “on the tree. Can you do that for me?”
Ginny looked at him expectantly as Harry nodded his head and began tying strings on the delicate ornaments. It was adorable, she thought, to see his powerful hands gently cradling glass balls, trying so hard not to break them.
Smiling, she left the room with one more backwards glance. She climbed the stairs and then mounted the ladder to the tiny attic where the rest of the decorations hid all year. The cardboard boxes formed a sea around her, and even with a lit wand, she couldn’t easily tell which box was which, and she cursed herself for forgetting to label them again. I might as well conjure new ones, she thought. Heavens knows Harry wouldn’t notice...
But that dismal thought seemed to make her all the more determined to find the only ones that might spark some sort of memory that had long since hidden itself in Harry’s mind. Sighing, she took down the box closest to her and looked inside.
Twelve boxes later, and Ginny decided that the Christmas decorations were obviously trying to avoid being found. In desperation, she reached for a smallish box in the far corner, one that clearly hadn’t been opened in some time, seeing as the layer of dust on top of it nearly acted as camouflage in the dim light. She set the box on her lap and lifted the lid, causing a small dust storm before her face.
Coughing, she waved the dust from her eyes and stuck the tip of her wand closer to the box. Time stood still as a wave of memory poured over Ginny, and she realized that she was more like Harry than she thought.
The mind is a curious thing, she knew, and now believed. What was life without a past? she had thought, and lamented for Harry, not even thinking to mourn for herself. She had remembered a gay childhood, and the endless years of adulthood (motherhood) here with Harry, but the transition had eluded her for quite sometime. All she remembered was being thrust into this life. She had forgotten that it all came from one single decision, a choice that she herself had made.
Inside the box, a pile of trinkets lay carefully positioned in their would-be final resting places, but her now-adult hands delved back into childhood as she removed the last remnants of her past: a jewelry box, filled with her favorite necklaces and earrings from her years at Hogwarts; a crumpled piece of parchment that had carried secrets between friends; a small bottle of old perfume. She opened the bottle, and memories came back like tears.
Her past smelled light and flowery, and now she had been given the key to its hidden secrets. She not only remembered faces, places, words exchanged, but feelings. Lord, she remembered with startling clarity how it felt to be young, how it felt to giggle behind school books, how it felt to love and be loved and, being young... to be left behind.
That was what this box was meant for, she remembered. Being left behind was worse than not being loved, and this box was a testament to her adulthood, a step she took herself, prematurely. These trinkets were no longer her, because she left them behind. Tears fell as she realized that she had closed the door to the only part of her life that she enjoyed living and reliving, and that the childhood Ginny had run away and into battle. There was no past, and that thought scared her more than anything.
She tipped the bottle over onto her fingertips, and dabbed the perfume onto the back of her neck. She would create a past, if hers rejected her. She cried harder, and hugged the old box to her chest.
Then she remembered Harry. Like a mother, she suddenly realized how selfish she was being. She tried to compose herself, but could not hide the redness in her eyes. Only time could fix that, she knew, so she began opening boxes again in search of the Christmas decorations. As if fate had orchestrated her brush with the past, the next box she opened contained all the candles and cinnamon sticks and little red bows for which she had been searching. She stood up and descended the ladder, descended the stairs, and went to help Harry with the decorations.
She walked past the living room, and Harry had apparently finished decorating the tree a long time ago. He was sitting on the couch and watched her walk past, into the kitchen to set down the box. Her eyes were still a little puffy, and she hadn’t wanted Harry to see her like this. But she heard footsteps a little hesitantly following her own, and then a voice that stopped her heart and erased all the painful tears that she had cried.
“Ginny?”
***
Ginny stopped, but couldn’t turn around. She was too afraid that what she heard had been a dream, had been anything but real, and she was certain that she could not handle another disappointment today.
But the voice spoke again, and this time it wasn’t a question: “Ginny.”
“Yes?” she spoke as she turned around, finally, raising her head to see Harry standing still in the hallway. His mouth was halfway turned upward in an almost-smile, but she could see the beginnings of tears forming in his beautiful green eyes.
“Oh, Harry!” she cried, running towards him with her arms open wide. “You remembered!” She hugged him fiercely, and for the first time in a very, very long time, he hugged her back. She couldn’t keep herself from crying, but this time, there was hope, and that made all the difference.
***
Careful not to break the spell, Ginny didn’t move for a long time. To be honest, she wasn’t quite sure what she should do. But when she lifted her head enough to look into Harry’s face, her mouth lit up in a smile. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s decorate.” She grabbed his hand “ it was habit, by now “ and they began going through the box of decorations.
One by one, they pulled out the bows and candles and statuettes that had once decorated the Burrow. They bickered playfully about where to place the holly leaves, and how to hang the fairy lights. After a while, Ginny asked, “Do you think we should put on some Christmas music?”
“Anything but Celestina Warbeck,” Harry commented, and the two giggled as they remembered Mrs. Weasley’s fetish for the warbling witch.
Once the box was empty, Harry and Ginny realized that their stomachs felt rather light, as well, and they sat down to eat supper. After all that had happened to the both of them, Ginny was surprised that they had not reminisced more. She didn’t want to press him, because she knew that some memories were too traumatic to relive, and if anyone had a haunting past, it would be Harry. But what could he remember? Was it just her name, and a few fuzzy moments over which they could share a brief laugh? Or had it all come back, every nightmare in vivid detail? Ginny’s elation had not dulled, but her curiosity grew to be overwhelming. For six years, not a single memory, and now... How was it possible that a perfume brought everything back?
“So, Harry,” Ginny began, simultaneously passing him the plate of ham. She hadn’t the slightest clue what to say anymore. “How... how do you feel?”
“Wonderful,” Harry said, smiling greatly. “This is really going to be the best Christmas.”
“Yes, it will,” Ginny said, her voice trailing off. Should I ask him? she thought, over and over until she thought her mind would explode.
But Harry noticed that Ginny seemed distracted. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Fine, I just...” She took a deep breath, and knowing that she could not be happy walking on eggshells like this any longer. “Harry, why did you leave me?”
It was a question of memory, sure enough, but Ginny wanted more than a recitation of the facts she’d heard all too often. She’d never been able to ask him how he felt, and why he did it, and all the things she knew, truly, but desperately wanted to hear.
“I... Ginny, I haven’t gone anywhere! Not in years!” Harry looked positively confounded. A little hurt, too, though not quite upset.
“No, Harry. I mean at Hogwarts. Why did we break up? Why did you go on without me?”
“Have we... We haven’t been apart, Ginny! I was with you then, and I’ve been with you ever since! Nothing happened, nothing changed!”
“Yes, but...” She wondered how, after all these years, there could still be anything that she wanted to say, but couldn’t. She didn’t want to frustrate him, but it made her heart break a little to think that Harry couldn’t remember all of the wonderful things he had done for the wizarding world...
“You don’t remember Voldemort, Harry?” The question fell on stony silence.
“Ginny, what are you talking about?” Harry could tell that Ginny was upset, but he hadn’t the slightest clue what she meant. If possible, she thought that not remembering made him more upset than remembering ever did.
“It’s nothing,” she said, gathering some empty plates and taking them to the kitchen. She knew it was silly to be so upset. She should be happy at least that Harry remembered their blissful moments together, and maybe she could forget the war with him.
But she couldn’t stand it. Harry was a hero. He had suffered so much in his life, suffered so that other people could live in safety, and he couldn’t remember a single sacrifice that he had made. He didn’t know that he was great. He didn’t know who he was...
It was life’s unfairness, she realized, that bothered her so much. After all that Harry had done, fate had left his memory in tatters. It had stolen his past, in a cruel and final twist that no one could say was unusual, at least in comparison to the unfairness that had filled his life for as long as she had known him. Life was unfair, and she knew this, but Harry’s life wasn’t the result of chance. It seemed as if someone had scripted a tragedy for him, and she just couldn’t take it anymore.
Ginny heard a tentative pair of footsteps entering the kitchen. She stopped moving, her heart included, and waited for whatever was to happen. Harry walked behind her, and put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, let’s go outside,” he whispered in her ear.
“It’s dark,” she said, without turning around.
“I’ll bring my wand,” he reassured her, and, grabbing her hand, he led her out the door.
Stepping out into the dark night, Harry’s wand gave off a brilliant light that illuminated a thousand tiny snowflakes floating in the air around them, taking precious time to find the ground. Ginny wrapped her arms around her shivering torso. “Let me get my coat,” she said, even before she had closed the front door.
“Wait,” Harry responded. He ran to the door, grabbing the doorknob before her hands could reach it, and shut the door behind her. He wrapped his arms around her, shielding her from the wind on which the night danced. “Better?” he asked.
Ginny nodded.
The tiny crystals fell like moonlit stars onto her cheeks, and one by one, they melted. Laughing, she reached into the snow by her feet, and discreetly formed a compacted ball of ice.
“Hey, what are you“?” Harry started to ask, before Ginny stood up and lobbed the snowball straight at his face. Harry looked at her in shock before Ginny sprinted into the cover of trees, pulling out her own wand for light. Harry chased after her with a particularly grizzly ice-ball of his own.
If they could not relive the past, Ginny decided, they would have to create new memories. Though people and places and all the particulars had been lost, Ginny knew that Harry remembered loving her, and such a memory could live on indefinitely, and they could let the rest slide into history as they began a new life together. Love had kept him going this long, and love would hold them together for a very, very long time.
You Remembered by the_evenstar
Chapter Notes: Thanks to Winged Artemis, for being a wonderful friend, beta, and prompt-giver for the Ravenclaw fic exchange. And thanks also to Lurid, for being a fantastic beta.