Harry walked with Teddy into the Great Hall and saw Andromeda crying next to Mrs. Weasley, who was also crying. She spotted him and tried to smile, and he answered with a half-smile before continuing his walk, knowing Andromeda would go looking for them in a little while.
He entered the room next to the Great Hall and gasped -- there were more than one hundred white coffins in that little room. Terrified, Harry turned on his heels and almost ran towards the Gryffindor common room. On the way, he saw Professor McGonagall, who told him that everyone would leave in the morning, and that the coffins he had seen were to be carried by families of the fallen. Suddenly, she stopped talking, but Harry could tell she still had something on her mind.
“What’s wrong, Professor?” Harry asked.
“I imagine you will take Remus’ coffin?” she asked, trying to hide the pain in her voice.
“Yes, I will,” Harry answered without thinking; after all, Remus had been the last link he had had with his parents, he had been like a surrogate godfather to him, and he was the only one of The Marauders he had gotten to know during his third year. Harry sniffed, he had never realized how much Remus meant to him, he had been both a teacher and a dear friend to him since he was thirteen, and now he was gone, leaving his newborn son an orphan.
McGonagall awkwardly hugged Harry, and as she let him go she half-smiled at him as Harry continued his journey. When he finally entered the Gryffindor common room, he was surprised and disappointed to find it empty.
Harry sighed ” he really hadn’t hoped for anything consciously, but some part of him wished Ginny had been waiting for him. He realized that his wish was impossible, after all she had just lost a brother, and she would most likely be with her family, grieving.
Harry thought that what had happened the previous night maybe hadn’t meant that much to Ginny as it had to him. After all, he had left her alone for almost a year after their kiss on his birthday. During that year, many things had happened, and maybe now she was with somebody else; she was gorgeous and many boys would want to be with her. But she had kissed him… maybe she still was in love with him, and after all this time she might still want him.
Harry kept thinking about Ginny ” about her eyes, her voice, her lips, her smile…
Eventually, he fell asleep after a tiring day, thinking of Ginny, and sitting in his favorite armchair with Teddy in his arms.
********
Ginny was walking alone near the edge of the forbidden forest, thinking about what had happened the night before with Harry. It had meant a lot to her; last night, instead of feeling the worst of pains, she had felt happiness, love and hope. But had it meant the same to Harry? He had broken up with her the previous year, after all. Ginny started remembering the same questions she had thought about during the past year. Had he missed her? Had he thought about her as much as she had thought about him? Did he still love her...? He had never actually said it, but she could tell from the way he looked at her. Would he know if it was love? After all, he had been raised by those awful relatives of his, who had never showed him anything but revulsion and contempt. Maybe, just maybe, he would still look at her with that same sparkle in his eyes… maybe he STILL loved her…
She moaned ” of course he didn’t; now he was the hero of the wizarding world … again. Even if he didn’t care for all those names and titles, he wouldn’t be interested in her, at least not like before. Both of them had changed a lot…
Unconsciously, her feet had wandered to the place where Harry had told her he wouldn’t be coming back to school; the place where he had broken up with her after Dumbledore’s funeral... The place where her hopes and dreams had collapsed; where, for the first time in her life before the war, she had considered begging and crying, but hadn’t.
She sat down and started crying in silence, hoping no one could see her. She mentally fought with herself, the two Ginnys inside of her battled to the death. The eleven year old Ginny, a scared little girl, that had been fooled and controlled by Tom Riddle, a girl who was still tormented by the insecurities he had raised vs. the nearly seventeen year old Ginny; the one who had joined Harry in his fight in the Department of Mysteries two years before; the one who had wrestled death eaters the night Dumbledore was killed; the one who, along with Neville and Luna had reformed and lead “Dumbledore’s Army” the past year; the one who had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts against her mother’s wishes; the one who would never take “no” for an answer.
In her mind she could still hear Tom Riddle’s voice teasing eleven year old Ginny: “He is Harry Potter, and you will never be more than his best friend’s little sister to him”.
While the stronger Ginny yelled: “That’s not true, you mean a lot to him, he made you his girlfriend, he broke up with to protect you from Voldemort, he could live with the idea of HIM hurting you because of his feelings towards you… don’t you get it Ginny? He loves you, even if he doesn’t know it himself!”
“He was just playing with you… just like I was…” Tom’s voice said again.
“No he wasn’t!!!! He kissed you Ginevra; he left you because he didn’t want Voldemort to find out how strong his feelings for you were… Snap out of it Ginevra and just ask him!”
And the fight inside her head stopped, she could no longer hear Tom Riddle, nor the voice of her eleven year old self, she realized that she should ask Harry the questions she had tormented herself with for a year; she should let Harry know how she felt. She would look into those green eyes she loved and speak her heart out, hoping he felt the same way, putting everything at risk, just like the girl Harry had fallen in love with.
Quickly, she got up and ran through the almost full hallways of the castle, asking everyone she knew if they have seen Harry. On her way, she found Andromeda, who told her she believed Harry was in the Gryffindor common room and asked her to tell him she wanted Teddy back.
She arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady who didn’t even ask for the password, and entered to the common room. It was empty at first sight, but when Ginny got closer, she saw him sleeping in an armchair with baby Teddy in his arms. It was such a sweet scene. Ginny looked at them for a while and then remembered Andromeda. Slowly, she approached Harry and took the baby out of his arms, then left the room quickly to find Andromeda outside the portrait hole.
********
Harry felt someone taking Teddy out of his arms. His first instinct was to blast the threat to his godson through the nearest wall, but a familiar scent caused him to open his eyes a fraction in time to see a redheaded girl walking out of the common room, and he heard her talk with someone outside.
“They were sleeping, so I took Teddy for you.” His heart flipped as he recognized the voice he had been wishing to hear since the ceremony ended.
“Okay, thanks, Ginny. Goodnight,” Andromeda, Harry thought, answered.
“Good night,” Ginny said, and Harry heard the portrait door open and close. He closed his eyes and pretended to still be asleep; he didn’t want her to feel awkward around him after what had happened the night before.
********
Ginny got back to the common room to find Harry still asleep. She looked at him, so peacefully sleeping and thought that even if he couldn’t hear her, she should take those words and questions out of her chest; maybe it would help her feel better.
“Harry, I really need to talk to you ” I know you can’t hear me, but anyway... I’ll do it… Last night was amazing for me; you made me feel as though nothing had changed between us. But I know it has. You spent almost a year fighting Voldemort, and I know you experienced terrible things… And now you are a greater hero than the one you were before. I, on the other hand, spent a year in here, trapped; fighting the Carrows and Snape, but that wasn’t half as hard as what you did.” She stopped talking and took a deep breath before continuing, “Harry, I’ve missed you terribly during the past year, and even though at first I wanted to kill you for leaving me behind, I came back to Hogwarts and remembered everything we did together, everything you meant to me, everything you still mean to me.
“I realized that I” I realized that I still love you. Yes, I never told you that before; and now that I get up the nerve to say it, you are sleeping... Brilliant…! But, anyway, I love you more than I could have ever imagined loving anyone; it’s really hard to admit it, but I do. I love you with all my heart…” Ginny realized she had tears falling from her eyes, so she cleaned them away and took a deep breath.
“I really hope last night was a new begging, not an ending to us… I hope, and I wish with all my heart that we can have a life together… It scares me to think about it, after all I’m only sixteen years old, why on earth would I be thinking about the future and about a life with someone?... But I am, and for once I feel like my dreams are within my reach”.
Ginny wanted to run away and scream, for the first time since her first year; she was crying in front of someone, she was pouring her heart out for the first time since Tom Riddle, and for the first time since her first summer between Hogwarts, she wanted someone to hold her and console her, she wanted, no… she needed Harry. She tried to steady her breath and her sobs started to subside, she took one final breath before saying:
“I know you might not feel the way you did about me before your left, but you know what? I don’t care. I just want you to be happy and alive; I don’t care about anything else. Because I love you, and I want you to be able to enjoy your life for once.” She finished her monologue and looked down as tears started once again falling down her cheeks.
And then she heard the voice she had been waiting to hear all day long.
“You’re right,” Harry said as he opened his eyes, stood up and started walking towards Ginny. “I don’t feel the same way towards you, that I did before I left…”
********
As Ginny looked up, she saw Harry’s lips move; she heard those words, but even though she recognized the voice that was saying them, she couldn’t believe it had been Harry who had spoken. All her hopes and dreams collapsed, and all she wanted to do was run to her dormitory and cry…
She looked again at the floor and started running towards the staircase, but as her foot landed on the first step, Harry grabbed her hand and then her waist. He moved her body so that she was facing him. Ginny looked into those green eyes, determined to say, “Let go”, but as she opened her mouth, she saw Harry’s lips moving and heard him pronounce just five words...
“I love you even more.”
Before the Happily Ever After by maisa potter
Chapter Notes: I would like to thank J.K, for thinking up Harry Potter; you, for reading this; and my Betas, without whom I wouldn’t have been able to write this.
Chapter Endnotes: Now do the right thing and write a review