Harry Potter and the Fortress of Woe

Harry’s gaze travelled once again through the room he had used for almost six years. All his belongings were neatly stacked in a corner, ready to get shrunken and stuffed into his trunk as soon as midnight had arrived and he was finally allowed to do magic during the summer holidays. Leaving Privet Drive felt strange. It wasn’t that he had any nostalgic feelings about the place or any intention to stay a moment longer than absolutely necessary, but he had the feeling that this moment was the threshold to a completely new episode in his life. He left behind the last bit of his crippled youth and mutilated innocence, walking away to wage a war he might not survive. It was one of the moments in life, when you simply had to contemplate the nature of life itself for a few moments. Normally you emerge from this thinking process as smart as you were before, but at least you could claim to have thought about it once in your life.

Shaking his head at his own thoughts, Harry checked the loose floorboard one last time, fearing to have forgotten anything important beneath it. The little space under it was empty as it had been the last three times he had checked. Sighing, Harry looked at his watch, like he had done a thousand times on this day, and discovered that he still had five minutes before leaving Privet Drive for good. Giving up trying to find something to occupy himself, Harry sat down on his bed and allowed his thoughts to flow freely.

Everything was prepared; he had sent Hedwig to the Weasleys three hours ago, she was bound to have arrived by now. Everything was ready and he only had to shrink his stuff and to cram it magically into his trunk. Then he would grab his firebolt and the trunk and would use the portkey. Easy. The only thing he was not absolutely sure about being ready was himself. Going to the Burrow would mean seeing the Weasleys. Seeing the Weasleys would mean seeing Ginny and seeing Ginny would be awkward at best. She had taken it quite well, back in June, but Harry was not sure how her attitude towards their break up was now. Ginny was at least as impulsive as he was and their two tempers would be more than able to produce a spectacular argument. The last thing he wanted was to row with Ginny about matters of the heart in front of her whole family. No, he was going to be polite, but distant. He would treat Ginny as though she was just his best friend’s sister and a good friend and not his pseudo ex-girlfriend, which he still cared deeply about. All he had to do was to avoid being alone with her and everything would be all right. Ginny would not dare to start an argument in front of her brothers, wouldn’t she?

Yeah, of course she would. Damn. Why did everything have to be so bloody complicated? Why could not Ginny simple accept that it was too dangerous to be in a relationship with him? Okay, so he had no real proof that she was planning something, but he had his gut instinct and he trusted his intuition. Why could she simply let it be? Couldn’t she see how painful this break up was for him? Why did she have to turn the knife just because she wanted something she could not have? At least, she could not have it now. And why on earth could not he stop thinking about her, fantasying about her even? Well, at least he had learned something about life this evening: sometimes love simply sucks.

The alarm on his clock peeped and he quickly whipped out his wand, shrunk his stuff and put it into his trunk. Then he enchanted it to be as light as a feather and took the trunk in one hand, clamped his broomstick between his torso and his arm and grabbed the portkey, not bothering to say goodbye to the Dursleys. There was no love lost between them and Harry no intention to fruitlessly try to change it.

A swirl of colours later, Harry landed roughly in front of the old, slightly warped house, he adored so much. He could feel the air crackling with magic and he strongly suspected that this was caused by the massive amount of protective wards placed around the building. Well, he could think about this later, there was no reason to stay out here in the night. Harry gingerly approached the front door and gently knocked, unwilling to wake anyone. He was anxious, but did his best to appear calm. He felt the familiar blank mask, which he had worn so often in his life, slip over his face, making him appear completely unbothered. In this moment the door opened and Harry found himself face to face with the Weasley he had both longed and feared to see again: Ginny Weasley.

“Hello Harry.” said Ginny casually, as though she was only welcoming her brother’s best mate and a friend of the family rather than her pseudo ex-boyfriend. “It’s good to see you, but we expected you to be here directly at midnight. What kept you?”
“Just some thinking about… life in general and change in particular.” replied Harry, cursing his bad luck. Fortunately he had been able to correct his last statement just in time. He nearly had admitted having thought about her. He used the moment of silence, to take a good look at her. Damn, she was beautiful. Her curly, red hair was gathered in loose ponytail, a few strands refusing to get captured and framing her face. Harry had to fight down the impulse to tuck them behind her ear, like he had had used to do during their relationship.

Despite the lateness - or earliness - of the day, she was fully dressed, wearing washed-out and slightly ripped jeans and a black tee shirt. A pretty tight shirt as well, which rendered it nearly impossible not to stare at her breast. It was distracting to say the least.
“Sounds like a very interesting topic to think about.” she returned, had face inscrutable, but a ghost of smile playing in her eyes. “Any revelations you want to share?”
“No, nothing.” answered Harry in a rush, after having needed some time to understand what she was talking about. He realized that she had most likely caught him staring at her. Mentally kicking himself for his carelessness, he decided to end this dangerous encounter as soon as possible.
“And it’s good to see you Ginny. May I come in? It’s getting chilly out here.”

“Of course, come right in.” she replied, stepping aside, allowing him to enter. Harry picked up his broomstick and trunk again and walked inside, glad at being of the hook for a while.
“Where am I supposed to bring my stuff?” he asked the redhead. “In Ron’s room, as usual?”
“Yep.” she replied, closing the door behind him. “You will have to bunk with my oaf of a brother as usual. Maybe Fred, George and Charley will join you; we are a bit low on room, due to the mass of wedding guests.”
“Ah the wedding, Ron said your mom was going berserk and that I should prepare myself for a hard time.”
“Yeah, mum is a bit enthusiastic about the whole thing.” answered Ginny, laughing. “She is just happy and a bit surprised that one of her sons is getting finally married. Especially Bill, he always appeared to be the eternal bachelor type. Apparently he cares deeply for Fleur, or he would not sacrifice his freedom to the “holy hell”, as he liked to call it in his earlier days.”

“Fleur?” asked Harry, genuinely surprised. Ginny had never like Fleur; he himself suspected that she was a bit jealous, because Fleur always had a stunning impact on the straight male population. “What happened to Phlegm?”
“Okay, okay, I was wrong about her.” replied Ginny, blushing. “When she saw Bill with the fresh scars in the hospital wing, I was more than a bit surprised to hear her pledge her undying love to him and I have treated her well since then, even though I should hate her for making me a bridesmaid.”
“Is it that bad?”
“You have no idea. Mum is using me as a overgrown puppet, checking which way my hair looks best to the dress, which flowers to weave in my locks, which shoes to wear and so bloody on.” she said, darkly. “It’s driving me out of my mind; I would rather be degnoming the garden with the other ones. I mean, it’s pointless anyway, everyone knows that I am going to look plain next to Gabrielle.”

“Not to me.” said Harry, before he could stop himself.
One of Ginny’s fiery eyebrows shot up, but she remained silent and just mustered him with a strange expression on her face.
“There is some supper left in the kitchen if you are hungry and Ron is waiting for you upstairs. But before you go there, please follow me, we have something to talk about.” she replied finally, after having let the silence between them linger for a few heartbeats.

“Err, sure.” replied Harry, not at all comfortable with the thought of talking with Ginny alone in her room, but without any ideas how to avoid it without being rude. Just because he broke off with her, he did not have to be a jerk. He would remain nice, but distant and she was definitely not going to talk him out of his decision. It just was a matter of willpower and he had enough of this, right? After all he had been able to free himself when placed under the Imperius Curse, how hard could it be to say “no” to his ex-girlfriend? Yeah, he really had nothing to worry about, but why was he so damned nervous about this?
“Brilliant.” answered Ginny, smiling a dazzling smile. “Take your stuff with you and let’s go.”

Harry barely had the time to pick up his things, before she had already started to climb the stairs leading to her room. Damn, her bum looks good in this pair of jeans! Shaking his head to chase away his treacherous thoughts, Harry slowly followed her, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Much too soon, they found themselves standing at the door leading to Ginny’s room.
“It is a bit cramped, because Hermione is bunking with me.” she said apologetically, before pushing open the door.

Harry found himself standing in a surprisingly big room. Apparently being the single girl in a family had its merits sometime. A bed and a mattress took most of the space, together with a writing desk and a big bookshelf. It was filled with an almost obscene amount of schoolbooks, which very likely belonged to Hermione and a large amount of thin paperback novels, most of them muggle. Harry caught one of the titles in the corner of his eyes: “storm of passion”. He stored Ginny’s fable for sappy novels in his mind, just in case he ever needed a present for her and did not have any better idea. A huge poster of the Hollyhead Harphies framed one of the walls painted in pale yellow and Harry could see a few roles of parchment and a quill lying on the writing desk, most likely homework assignments. All in all the room was astonishingly neat and Harry found it hard to believe that Ginny was such a tidy person. His experiences rather suggested the contrary. Either it was Hermione’s doing, or Ginny had cleaned, because she knew he would be visiting. If she had, the question remained why she had considered it necessary.

Harry sat down on the only chair in the room, after setting down his trunk and his broom, while Ginny preferred her bed. She was gnawing at her bottom lip, a sign that she was thinking hard about something. The silence stretched between them. One minute…two minutes…three minutes. Finally Harry could not bear it anymore.
“Well, what exactly did you want to talk about?” he asked, more nonchalance in his voice than he had thought he possessed.
“Huh?” she replied, resurfacing from her contemplation.
“You asked me to come up here, because you wanted to talk about something.” said Harry, rolling his eyes. He was not in the mood to play games. “Well, here I am.”

“Oh, oh right.” replied Ginny, her eyes widening briefly, before becoming inscrutable again. “Well, I wanted to talk about us, but I thought that was almost blindingly obvious.”
“Uh, okay.” answered Harry, not at all happy with the topic and still wanting to evade a conversation about their break up as long as possible. Preferably for ever. “Well, that’s a rather big topic, what exactly do you want to talk about? After all we have known each other for almost six years.”

Harry knew he was stalling, but he did not have any better ideas at the moment. He briefly could see anger sparkling in Ginny’s eyes; apparently she was not at all amused at his attempts. Well, if she really wanted to talk about this painful topic, then he would make her work for it.
“Don’t play dumb, Harry.” she replied sharply. “You are not a particular good liar and you were never ever able to fool me. You know exactly what I am talking about!”
“I do, don’t I?”
“You are behaving absolutely childish!” said Ginny, angrily stomping her foot on the ground. “You can’t stall this conversation forever; you will have to talk to me sooner or later!”
“And what if I don’t want to talk about this topic at all?” replied Harry calmly, stung by her words, but still searching for a way to evade this conversation.

“This is not about what you want Harry.” returned Ginny scathingly. “This is about both of us and the last time I checked, I had the right to have a say in matters of my heart!”
“Fine, have it your way then.” answered Harry, finally accepting that there was no way out of this mess, not involving stunning the fiery redhead on the other side of the room. “There is nothing to talk about anyway.”
“Their bloody hell is something to talk about! How about my feelings and my opinion on the stupid reason you used to break things off with me?”
“What the heck has gotten into you?” asked Harry, irritation evident in his voice. “A month ago you told me you understood why I had to do this. What on earth happened to make you change your mind? Nothing is different today. The fresh wounds are barely healed and Voldemort is probably even stronger then a month ago. I really don’t see why we should get back together now.”

Suddenly Ginny was standing in front of the chair he was sitting in, her chocolate coloured eyes sparkling with anger and frustration. She had moved so fast that he had not recognized her until she was already towering above him.
“Now you will listen to me, you overly noble prat!” she hissed angrily. “I never ever accepted your decision to leave me, you hear me? I told you that I understood your reasons and I still do, but that does not mean that I have to like or accept it. I briefly considered telling you this as soon as you broke off with me, but I cared too bloody much, to start an argument with you directly after Dumbledore’s funeral. What the hell do you expect? You should have seen how lost and hurt you looked and I just did not have the heart to cause you even more grief. So I decided to let you from the hook for now and talk to you as soon as you arrived back on the burrow.”

Harry tried to interrupt her, but she simply ignored him, raising her voice a bit more to drone out his protesting words.
“Yes, I know that Tom is after you, imagine that after seeing you getting hunted by him for six years in a row, I got the message. And yes, I know that it may endanger me to be your girlfriend, but you know what? I don’t bloody care! I am involved in this war no matter how things are between me and you! I am a Weasley and we are considered one of the worst blood traitors who ever walked the earth. To make matters worse all of my brothers, except for Percy and Ron, and my parents are members of the Order, making me an even more attractive target. Why do you think there are wards placed around the burrow throughout the whole year? They are not just in place because you are here, but to protect all of us from the hostile forces out there! The world does not resolve around you, you can try to influence it, but you can’t change it! Just because we are not dating, Death Eaters won’t leave me alone if they ever got my hands on me!”

“Don’t even think about that!” said Harry, while she catching her breath. Just the thought of Ginny in the hands of Death Eaters like Lucius Malfoy, caused a shudder to travel down his spine. Still her words had struck a nerve. Was he overestimating himself and his ability to influence Voldemort and his goons? Would his break up make any difference in the end?
“Shut it Harry.” replied Ginny tiredly, sinking back to on the bed. “You know I am right. Tom’s world is black and white. There are allies and foes and nothing in between. Oh and there is you of course, but that’s something different. I am his foe and nothing you or I could do and would consider doing is going to change that. Period. He would come after me, even if we weren’t dating, just because he knew that we were once. That is pretty common knowledge, thanks to the fact that you snogged my in front of the whole Gryffindor tower and he would try to get me just to hurt you. So are you going to remain stubborn and will throw the best two weeks in our lives away or will you finally admit that you were wrong?”

God, how could a girl be so smart and so naïve at the same time? She had said herself that there were special cases on Voldemort’s list of enemies and when would it finally penetrate her thick skull that she was close to earning herself a special place on this list? Harry was determined to never let that happen.
“No way Ginny.” he said, pouring every ounce of determination in his voice, even though a part of him was extremely pleased about her fighting for their relationship. Damn, she knew how to make a man feel special. “You said yourself that I have earned myself a special spot right on top of Voldemort’s agenda. If he has any reason to believe that we are still a couple, then he is going to come after you with all force, just to lure me out of my hiding place. I was extremely lucky in the past encounters and I highly doubt that my luck will continue much longer or that you are going to be so lucky, if you meet him again. Maybe I am underestimating his cruelness and overestimating my influence on him, but if something happened to you while we were together I would never stop blaming myself for it. I doubt that I would be able to live on.”

“Therefore here is what we are going to do. You are going to spread the rumour that I left you for another woman. If Hogwarts reopens, it will be fairly easy to do so, if not, we will have to contact the press. You will tell everyone that you don’t have any contact with me at all anymore and that you never want to see me again. This is going to need a lot of acting skill, but I am confident that you can do this. Then you will stay out of the fighting and the two of us will get out of this alive. What do you say?”

“No.” she replied simply.
“No?” Harry cried in disbelief. Women could be so bloody stubborn sometimes. “What’s the matter now?”
“I am tired of getting treated like a child Harry.” she returned, determination flaring in her beautiful eyes. “I am going to help you winning this war and if I have to travel over the world to find you. Dumbledore himself said that love was your greatest strength and it would be foolish at best to push this away, just because you are being noble! Also no one would buy this story and did not you tell me once that Voldemort could always tell if someone was lying? So are not going to get rid of me that easily. And I know that you miss me, I can see it in your eyes! And I know that you are hurting inside and that you are depressed. Let me help you Harry, before it’s too late. Please!”

For a sliver of a heartbeat, Harry was overwhelmed by the love he could see shining in her eyes and he was so close to simply agree to her and to return to were they had been a month ago. But then his mind caught up with his heart and he angrily crushed his weakness. He was not going to give in! He knew he was right and she was not going to talk her into something he did not want to do at all. She was being irrational and he had to protect her from herself.
“No, Ginny, I am not going to chance my mind.” he said quietly, finality evident in his tone. “I stand to my decision and you don’t have to like it. I don’t like it either, but that’s life.”
“Well, I am not going to change my mind either.” she replied equally determined.

Uncomfortable silence stretched between them.

“This is stupid!” exclaimed Ginny finally, after nearly five minutes had ticked by. “Both of us are not going to give in, but we are both unhappy with the current situation. You want me to stop nagging you and I want to get the two of us back together. Well, I think I have an idea how to solve this problem.”
“Really?” asked Harry, suspicion creeping in his voice. It was so un-Ginny to admit defeat and whatever suggestion she was going to make was likely just a tool to make him change his mind. However he did not have any better ideas and did not fancy having to spend his time at the burrow arguing with Ginny over their doomed relationship. “Alright, I am all ears.”

“It’s actually pretty simple.” she replied, standing up from her bed and walking over to the chair Harry was sitting in. “You will simply have to convince me that you don’t want to get back together with me at the moment, that you would never even consider it with the war going on. If you can convince me then I will leave you alone and be a good girl waiting for you to come back. If you can’t, then I will bug you until you see things my way. Deal?”
Harry first impulse was to tell her to forget it, but after thinking about it for a moment he warmed to the idea. After all how hard could it be to convince her? Sure, he would have to lie a bit, because a part of him wanted to throw caution in the wind and snogg her senseless right there. But he could do this! He was not going to fail this one!
“You have got yourself a deal.” he replied, his voice hoarse.

“Well, here I am Harry.” she said, looking down on him, chocolate eyes locking with jade ones. “Convince me.”
Just as Harry opened his mouth, he lost all of his courage. Damn, he could not do it. He could not lie to her, she would never believe him. Her beautiful eyes were piercing directly into his soul and he was not even feeling uncomfortable under her scrutinizing gaze. Maybe she was right, maybe he really should not push her away. After all Dumbledore himself said that love was his greatest strength. Would not it be prudent to act after his old mentor’s recommendation? Yeah, he was going too…

BAM!

The door leading to Ginny’s room flew open with a crash, hitting the wall behind it with a dull thud. In the doorframe stood Ron Weasley, as tall and speckled with as much freckles as ever. A huge smile was plastered on his face, as he spotted his best mate and the thought that he might interrupt something intimate never occurred to him.
“Harry mate, what’s keeping you? I wanted to play a bit of chess with you before going to bed. We have got so many things to discuss, you know?”

Under normal circumstances Harry would be astonished at Ron trying to subtly imply something, but a moment all he wanted was to get out of this room. Deciding to ponder this change in his best friend’s behaviour later, he quickly stood up and grabbed his things.
“You are right Ron; it’s late already and tomorrow is probably going to get very tiring with all the wedding preparations. See you in the morning, Gin.”

Harry all but bolted from the room, thanking fate for this little piece of luck.