English Girls, Approximately.

I hope that I've managed to catch your intrest thus far, and that you're still reading. If this is the case, I hope you're pleased with what you've read so far. I've been writing like mad every chance I got today, simply because it seemed like the Right thing to be doing: fuck schoolwork, and all that.

I have to say, I've been reluctant to post this piece simply because I'm not sure how I'm going to work in and around the seventh book. I know that this story can stand on its own, that it can deviate from the events of the seventh book without trouble, but I was still reluctant to do so. I considered waiting till the seventh book came out to finish this story off, but I've gotten really "into" it lately, and can't contain myself any longer. Without a direct line to JKR for plot details and future character development/story development, I decided instead to just go with the information proffered at the end of the book: Dumbledore is dead. Snape is his murderer and a traitor. Malfoy has currently cast his lot with the Death Eaters. Harry and co. don't plan on returning to Hogwarts seventh year. Whether or not I believe that any of this information is the full truth (because, actually, I don't believe nearly ANY of it; I doubt JKR will set the action of book seven away from Hogwarts, for instance, but I am ready to be prooved wrong) isn't the issue; since this story doesn't center around Snape, Malfoy, Dumbledore, or even really very much of Voldemort, I think I will be okay. If anyone notes any inconsistances or has any issues with anything written, I would be happy to hear your side, make changes where neccessary, or defend my descisions.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. (Though I truly think that Snape is a "White Hat", a Good Guy, just for the record.)

Please enjoy! It's a bit longer this time...

________

"She's got eyes as pretty as a pair of jewels
Falling down in Camden like a couple drunken criminals."


There were twenty-two Weasleys around the dinner table that night, and they were all talking at once—except for one, who wasn’t saying much of anything at all.

Ginny speared a radish with her fork. She was quite grateful that no one seemed to expect her to join in the family banter.

Aside from Charlie, who had taken a house in Ottery St. Catchpole so he and Sarah could help dad out, Ginny had lived the closest and dropped by the visit at least once a week She had always done the cooking on those nights, doing her best to dredge up her mother’s fading recipes while dad had set the table; they had eaten from the chipped dishes that mum had always been so careful to keep spot-free.

Steaming dishes of potatoes, vegetables, gravy, and the highly honored leg of lamb were all being passed around the table; the kitchen was lit with a warm glow from the candles and the cheerful little fire crackling in the crumbled grate. Everyone was crammed around the scratched table, the whole noisy lot of them, with a buzz of conversation burning its way into Ginny’s ears. But dad would have liked the noise, she thought with a wry little grin. He also would have loved to see everyone together again, though he probably wouldn’t have said very much himself. Dad had liked to listen to them instead.

The meat was melting in Ginny’s mouth, hot and slick against the back of her throat, but it still tasted like ash.

“Charlie, this is wonderful,” Bill said from down the table, with his mouth full.

Ginny swallowed, sticking the spoon back into the green beans and plucking a few almonds off the before sliding the bowl along the table toward Laurie.

Charlie’s little daughter, sitting on a large stack of Gildroy Lockheart books, was hardly tall enough for her arms to reach her butterbeer, and she gave Ginny a shy smile as she dug into the beans. Ginny never remembered eating beans when she was Laurie’s age—she distinctly remembered hating beans at three years old, but Charlie had always been more agreeable. Perhaps Laurie had inherited Charlie’s temperament, if not the picky Weasley appetite.

Ginny took another bite of lamb and tried to swallow without much success. All the food seemed to be sticking in her throat.

Charlie smiled at Bill from next to Laurie as he cut up her meat with a fatherly command of knife and fork. “Thanks, but Sarah’s the real wonder here. I’m amazed that she managed to whip up all this food in so short a time.”

“With a bottomless pit like you for a husband, I’m sure she’s had plenty of practice,” Fred put in, dandling his youngest daughter on his knee as he pulled a disgusted face. “Now someone pass the gravy bowl, please, so I can throw up from all this sweetness and love in the kitchen. It’s starting to make me ill.”

“Though the lamb is very good, Charlie,” George added, as he started the gravy around the table.

“Et iz nearly as good as we used to have at ‘ome,” Fleur put in. She was feeding the baby, Michelle, some sort of green paste, swiping the silver spoon around the tiny drooling mouth to catch the flecks that didn’t quite make it down. Her other two daughters, Natalie and Veronica, were engaged in a sort of group giggle with Fred’s eldest, Sophie. Ginny felt bad that she could hardly remember a thing about the troop of little girls, except that she always bought them toy broomsticks for Christmas.

Fred was beside his wife, Angelina, whose voice cracked out orders every so often as she struggled keep her sons at the table—Mason and Oscar, meanwhile, seemed to have their own ideas about where to eat dinner, and kept trying to sneak their food onto the floor so they could sit under the table with Charlie’s dogs and feed them scraps. Neely, Fred’s tiny daughter, was clapping her hands and burbling happily to herself as Fred bounced her from knee to knee; she hadn’t exactly learned to talk yet except in her own separate way.

Meanwhile, Sandy and Denny, George’s twins, were making quite a mess of their end of the table, even as their mother Meg cleaned up after them and hissed threats if they didn’t behave. Meg was a very nice, though sometimes heavy-handed lady, who had helped keep shop for Fred and George when they had first started out. Her blond hair, which she still kept trimmed short, swished about her chin as she turned to speak sharply to George to give her hand with their unruly sons.

Ginny managed one more bite before pushing her plate away. She couldn’t eat anymore; the taste was making her feel ill. Charlie was a wonderful cook, always had been, but there was something that was making her stomach feel quite upset, something that she was trying not to think about . . . .

When Hermione had walked in the door, the first thing that Ginny had noticed was her very pregnant stomach. It had been very difficult not to notice, and she had been quite surprised. No one had mentioned another baby, and Ginny didn’t exactly keep in contact with her brother’s family. She saw them on Christmas Day, and that was usually it—enough to bestow quick presents upon the two sons, Cole and Nick, and maybe give Ron and Hermione a smile before fleeing the scene entirely.

Ginny wasn’t a good aunt, and she wasn’t a good sister-in-law. She had never pretended to be, not from the start. She had barely managed to be a passable daughter, and being here with the rest of the family only rubbed salt into that old wound. Her parents had never made a fuss about it, but Ginny had always felt as though they were disappointed in her, in some small way.

But even with all that black sheep business, Hermione still sought Ginny’s eye, made her way across the room. “Ginny.”

“Hermione,” Ginny had said, giving her a weak smile. “You look well.”

“Yes, we’ve been all right,” Hermione said. Her bushy brown hair was pulled back away from her face in a tight knot; there were a few loose strands escaping around her face. She was lovely, Ginny noted, not for the first time; Ron’s wife had a sort of unassuming elegance about her that had only deepened in her later years. She was clad in a loose-fitting sundress that draped about her frame, graceful even in her cumbersome state of pregnancy. Other women were not nearly as lucky. “I’m sure you’ve heard that Ron will be arriving shortly.”

“Tomorrow. Sarah mentioned.” Ginny allowed Hermione to enfold her in a hug, even went as far as to rest her arms lightly on her sister-in-law’s shoulders, but she could feel Hermione holding back just as much as she was. Something they weren’t saying. Something no one ever said.




“Ginny, listen,” he had said quietly, very quietly. She almost hadn’t heard him; she’d been staring at him, watching him, but had almost missed his words. “I can’t be involved with you anymore. We’ve got to stop seeing each other. We can’t be together.”

The words had echoed round her head, but she had prepared herself, she was ready. She had almost known that he was going to say this since Dumbledore had died; no, before that. She had known that he was going to say these words all along, that someday he would get it into his gallant head that he had to leave her.

So she had been ready. She met what he had to say easily, without even biting her lip once. And she didn’t care, she hadn’t cared at all—oh, she cared that he was leaving her, because she really hadn’t given up on him, because she’d liked him all along—but she didn’t care about Voldemort. She didn’t care about danger or any of it, but he did. But through all his talk of funerals and going on alone, and through all his blind stupid nobleness, Ginny had watched him, and she knew that he didn’t want to say this.

“I knew you wouldn’t be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort,” she had told him, before he walked away from her, away from the tomb, away from the funeral. “Maybe that’s why I like you so much.”

She had wanted to say love, maybe that’s why I love you so much, but the word wouldn’t come, and she’d said like instead, stupid weak like that didn’t really mean a thing, all awkward and juvenile and stupid.

And maybe afterward, after he had crossed the lawn away from her, after eating a dinner that tasted like wormwood between her teeth, and after she’d gone back up to her bed in the dormitory room, and after she’d shut the curtains around her bed; maybe after all of that, Ginny might have cried a little. But it was only a little, because she’d seen it coming.

That had been it, really, for then.

All through her stupid younger days, Ginny had planned and schemed and dreamed to someday marry Harry Potter, not because he was the Harry Potter, Iconic Godly Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived: even as a kid, she didn’t think that she had loved him with blind devotion. He was good-looking, in a far off, rumpled, ill-trimmed pale-skinned crooked-glasses way, sure, but she wanted something more than just that. She wanted him to admire her, too, to think maybe that her freckles were alluring, to find the tiny gap between her two front teeth endearing, to think that milk-pale skin and long red hair were fashionable and beautiful and attractive, God willing. Whenever he had come near to her, she had fallen over herself to talk to him, to try and say something worth saying, but nothing ever came out correctly. Everything was full of blushes and “ers”, and Harry Potter, with his well good rumpled looks, would smile at her in a considerate but friendly but almost condescending oh-you-poor-kid way, and Ginny would want to crawl in between the cracks of the floor, crumble away and die somewhere dark and quiet.

There had been awkward periods in between, even when Ginny was trying to loosen up, trying to see other blokes and work it all out in her head at the same time—how you could go to Madam Puddifoot’s with Michael Corner, or Dean Thomas, or with anyone, really, snogging at a table covered in pink lace and little hearts, and still think in the back of your head that Harry Potter was the best looking one in all of Hogwarts and you’d really rather be snogging him, or maybe even doing something far more drastic and adult. And she’d think that she had it all sorted out, but then something stupid would happen—she’d see Harry in the corridor, he would play beautifully in a Quidditch match, he’d smile at her a little, or rumple his hair with one hand, or any of the small things Harry would do during a normal day. And suddenly, without warning, Ginny would feel herself devolving, relapsing back to a simpering, blushing little eleven-year-old girl who chewed on her hair a lot and sent painfully desperate Valentines to the object of her gawky affections.

It got easier, though. She struggled gamely through it, thinking maybe if she acted grown-up, maybe if she pretended not to mind so much, sitting on the same seat on the train as him, bumping elbows at dinner, doing homework nearly side-by-side; maybe then he’d like her more. There was a sick sort of childish desperation echoing in those thoughts, but she struggled through it all anyway. And eventually it started to be more natural, eventually she began to feel more natural, until it wasn’t as big of a struggle any longer, until she could sit in Madam Puddifoot’s with a boy and snog him senseless with Harry Potter locked safely away in a box stuffed toward the back of her head, where she didn’t have to think of him all the time.

By then, she was a fifth year; she’d lost all her baby fat and grown in to her adolescent body—still with unalluring freckles and milk-pale skin and straight red hair. Only she’d cut her red hair shorter, trimmed it up a bit so it brushed against the sharp line of her chin and cupped her cheek, and maybe it was fading from carroty reddish orange to a nice gleaming red, the color she’d always wished it would turn. Only she could stand in front of the mirror in the showers and look at herself—at the flat tuck of her stomach, pulled taunt against her slim body; at the lines of her breasts pushing out against her starched white shirt; at the trim arcs of her legs and the fine quirk her mouth made when it smiled—and she’d think, Slender, that’s what you are, Ginny Weasley, and maybe even a little pretty. She was aware that when she swished her hips, boys would look at her differently as she walked down the corridors; she became conscious of the fact that quirking that smile, lifting her eyebrows a little over what she used to think were plain muddy eyes, could give most of the young men of her acquaintance something akin to heart palpitations. Ginny hadn’t been a flirt, exactly, but she’d gone out to encounter the world armed with new knowledge: that skinny chicken legs turned into graceful slim muscles, that pretty little smiles sometimes helped, that most boys were lumps of stupidity, and that she was a quick-thinker and a fast-talker. All of this was to her distinct and very real advantage. What was left over could be solved by a wicked Bat-Bogey Hex or a well-placed Dungbomb. It was easy.

And then it had gone all complicated again. Because there were feelings, but they weren’t exactly her feelings this time: they were mostly the feelings of Harry Potter, transmitted like a radio wave at maximum volume, all across the Common Room, in the corridors when they would catch each other between classes, during Quidditch practices, and over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She hadn’t really known what to do with feelings, at least not from his end of things—Ginny hadn’t prepared herself for that, had always assumed that she would remain somewhat on the unrequited end of the scales. She felt like she was playing games as a kid again, where the rules changed to suit the winner’s whims, and Ginny wasn’t ever the winner. She was always on the losing team, stomping their feet and shouting about what’s fair and what’s not fair—only there wouldn’t have been much of a point to doing any foot-stomping in this arena.

Ginny tried to forget about Harry Potter—stupid, rumpled, ill-trimmed pale-skinned crooked-glasses handsome Harry Potter, with his nobleness and his gawky little grins—tried to stuff him away in the same lockbox at the back of her head, him and all his feelings blasting at her from halfway across the castle. Only, somehow, imperceptibly, he didn’t fit in the damn box any longer. He was always there—because he was friends with her brother, with Hermione; with her, too, because “being friends” had seemed like a good idea at the time—and she was always having to think about him, with him leaping out of his box all the time, like a trick skeleton popping out of his spring-loaded coffin in a shoddy haunted house.

She had been dating Dean Thomas at the time, casually snogging him in odd little corners of the castles, sometimes meeting each other for the Hogsmede trips, holding hands and laughing at each other’s jokes. Mostly Dean’s jokes, to tell the truth. And Dean told a lot of jokes; Ginny felt obligated to laugh at all of them, even the gauche unfunny ones with lots of stupid hand gestures. Boys, she would think to herself, rolling her eyes: and dammit, there was Harry again, nipping out of his box to give her a little wave. I don’t tell dirty jokes, he seemed to be saying. I never make stupid hand gestures. And, oh yes, I’d let you get a word in edgewise, between my bad jokes. Except that I wouldn’t tell bad jokes in the first place, so you wouldn’t have to worry.

Dean had been the decent sort, all things considered. Besides the bad jokes and hand gestures, there wasn’t a lot about him that she didn’t like, except maybe that he wasn’t Harry, and that was stupid. Ginny even knew that it was stupid when she thought it, every time she looked at Dean, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. And as soon as she thought his name, Harry would pop in again, jumping out of the box she kept trying to shove him in.
She and Dean had ended, in convulsions of heated miniature arguments, mostly because Ginny couldn’t seem to concentrate on him. There were things that he did, too, of course—rushing her into things, spending excess amounts of time with her, and most of their dates would end with him trying to stick his hand up her shirt, and her telling him off. In a strange sense, she was flattered by his efforts in that department, at least, but that didn’t mean that she necessarily appreciated his advances.

It was far worse, in a way, to be single and have Harry Potter blasting you with feelings every time you turned a corner. Ginny didn’t tell anyone about her reciprocating feelings, not even Hermione; Hermione, who wanted to help, and probably would have helped, tucking all corners away neatly and tying up loose ends with nimble fingers. But Ginny didn’t tell her on purpose, and she couldn’t really say why. Perhaps some part of her wanted to take care of it all on her own, like she imagined an adult might; perhaps Hermione had just never asked the right questions; perhaps Ginny was a little bit nervous about leaping into something with Harry, because she had liked him so intensely for so long. Whatever it was, she had kept her mouth shut tight: and then the rules had changed again, and Harry Potter was kissing her on the mouth after a Quidditch game, pressing his lips to hers and pulling her into a sort of half-embrace right in front of the entire Common Room, and Ron, and Hermione, and Dean, too.

As it turned out, it was very true that Harry didn’t tell tacky jokes, and she only saw him make rude hand gestures once or twice, and even then they weren’t illustrative of any conversation or punch line, but rather perfectly logical responses to heckling or catcalling. Ginny found that she didn’t mind spending excess time with Harry at all, that he didn’t really rush her into anything. The one time his fingers had crept along the waistline of her jumper, he had been so tense about it that he’d nearly fallen off the bed. That made her feel almost better than unwanted hands with icy-cold fingertips feeling her up in a singularly bothersome manner. And it was fun to make up stories about his fictional tattoos, to tease him and then kiss him two seconds after, tangling her fingers in his unruly black hair and pulling his face down to her, his lips to meet hers. She could have snowball fights with him, or she could lay in front of the fire with him, his arm round her shoulder and her head pillowed against his chest; they could chase each other on broomsticks, round and round the Quidditch pitch, or they could sit beside the lake and watch the giant squid roiling lazily in the summer sunlight. It was all whatever with Harry, and Ginny loved the whatever. Who cares. Whatever will be, will be, and so on and so forth.

It was perfectly lovely. Perhaps it was even her loveliest time at Hogwarts.

And then, meager months later—no, less than months—he was sitting in front of her, holding her hands between his, looking her in the eyes with all his noblest sincerity, and saying, Ginny, listen, and, we’ve got to stop seeing each other, and, the real clincher, we can’t be together.

She had been ready for it, of course; she had half-seen it coming. That still didn’t stop Ginny from wanting to call him names, mean ones, probably with lots of rude hand gestures and offensive, goading insults. But half of her hand understood, in an ear-ringing sort of way. She hadn’t been able to say much, just stare at him as he rambled on about going on alone, about putting her in danger, about guilt and heroics and so much more between the lines that he probably didn’t even mean to say: I care about you exaggerating into Ginny Weasley, I love you. If this was your funeral becoming I wouldn’t want to lose you. And Ginny realized, sitting beside the lake with the sunlight glinting off of the water, that she had done her job too well, in a strange sort of way. She had wanted for Harry to love her, and now he did—so much that he didn’t want to hurt her, which was nice of him, of course, but not what she wanted. What Ginny wanted was to be with him, no matter what—not just laying around by the fire, rolling in the grass, sitting beside him in the Great Hall, going to class and Quidditch practice, but really be with him. Go after Voldemort or wherever he was going; quit school and help him all that she could.

Instead Ginny had told him that she liked him. As though she was that same bloody eleven-year-old again, sending him ridiculous Valentines and surreptitious glances across the corridors that he never seemed to catch. By like she meant love, of course, but he didn’t catch that either. She could tell.

He stood up, walked away. Ginny wanted to grab his hand, shake him by the shoulders, tell him how she could help, tell him how useful she could be. “I could hex people for you,” she practically shouted out, across the whole of the breaking funeral. “You saw what good I did on those Death Eaters. Well, it wasn’t all that good; it was actually pretty shoddy work. But I was nervous, but I think if I—if I practiced up a bit, if you were, to, you know, help me out. We could work together, you and me, Harry. I’m not afraid, I’m really not. Not of—of Voldemort, or of death, or of any of it. Not if—” but even in her head, her voice caught. Not if I’m with you. I’m not afraid if I’m with you, Harry.

But she had let him walk away, because she was afraid. Not of death and Voldemort; not of pain. Of telling Harry that she loved him. Inexplicably, she couldn’t force the words out, even though she knew it was true. Even though she was burning up with a desire, a want, a need to tell him; even though she knew that not minding someone’s hand crawling under your jumper meant that you cared about them, in a significant way; even though Ginny loved him more fiercely and more strongly than she had ever loved anyone else before: even despite all of that, she couldn’t force the words out. I love you. They wouldn’t come, and Harry walked away.

If she had said I love you, would she have gone along with?

Ginny had wanted to kill him when she found out that Ron and Hermione were going along. She had been forced to drag the information out of Ron, bit by bit, piece by piece. All summer, she had stewed and brooded—it was all right for them to go with, but not her? Harry could put them in danger, but it was “oh poor kid Ginny” all over again? Just stay home and be good, go to classes and try not to think about it, try not to let it get to you.

Bill and Fleur had been married that same summer, and Harry had arrived at the Weasley house amid the preparations. Mum had been taking up the hem of Ginny’s brand new dress robes, purchased solely for the service when he had banged in behind Ron. There was an awkward smile for her over mum’s shoulder as Harry was crushed in an embrace; Ginny had felt herself smiling back despite herself, despite her stronger feelings to be angry with him, even only for a little bit.

They had danced together at the wedding, Midsummer’s Eve. The reception was on the back patio, a cavalcade of colored lanterns bobbing in the trees hemming the garden. Ginny wore flowers twined through her hair, a skinny crown of pale blue roses that Fleur’s little sister Gabrielle had woven with ribbons hanging down the back. Her dress robes, as airy and as pale blue as a spring morning, floated around her trim ankles, fluttering around her bare toes: she hated to wear shoes in the summer, and had abandoned hers, despite the dirt of the lawn.

“Anyone ask you to dance yet?” Harry was standing just beside her, behind her shoulder. If Ginny looked sideways, she could see him out of the corner of her eye, looking as handsomely ruffled as he always did. His dress robes were a little askew, as if he wasn’t used to wearing fine clothes.

She turned toward him, feeling a smile growing across her lips. “Yes,” she replied as loftily as she could manage, tossing her hair, “but I’ve turned them all away.”

“Why?” Harry had taken the empty seat beside her. His hands were folded nervously in his lap; after a moment they stirred, raised the fingers to the side of her face, plucked away a loose rose petal from her hair.

Ginny caught his hand in hers, held it. “Dunno. Guess I was waiting to see if you’d take it upon yourself to get your arse over here and ask me to dance.”

He laughed at that, turning away and flicking the petal from between his fingertips. “I’m not much one for asking.”

“Then I’ll simply have to do my best,” Ginny replied, grinning now. “At training you, I mean. I shall instruct you in the grand ways one goes about asking Me to Dance at a Wedding. And, I feel that I ought to add, I think I shall enjoy this,” she added, winking at him. “I have always secretly wanted a boy to train.”

Harry laughs again. “Well, then. What do I do first?”

“First, you get off your arse.”

He stood obediently, smiling down at her. His eyes crinkled up behind his glasses, becoming little narrow slits of green in his handsome face. The lines of his cheekbones were elongated, narrow, coming to a fine pointed chin. It was very nice face. It made Ginny want to smooth her fingers against his skin, maybe kiss the corner of his mouth. Just to see.

“Then you hold out your hand,” she said, holding up her own as though offering him something. He slid his fingers along hers, sending little chills up her pale arms.

“Then you just…say it.”

“Want to dance, Ginny?” Harry asked, grinning at her.

She smiled back. “Of course. Git.”

The warm evening breeze kicked up the trembling blades of summer-green grass on the lawn, tugging on the ends of her hair. Ginny had felt lighter than the air itself in a significantly giddy manner, caught up between Harry’s arms in a sort of swaying embrace. She had pressed her head against his chest, felt the warmth of him around her. He smelled like sunshine and dirt, like a Quidditch pitch on a warm, sunny afternoon. Ginny had closed her eyes and prayed that this part never, ever ended, that she could twirl around with him on the longest day of the year, with an everlasting sunset spilling pinks and early-evening purples all across the lawn, lengthening their shadows into unbelievable arcs and folds, holding close around them as she leaned against Harry, as she pretended that she could tell him that she loved him, that she wanted this to be their wedding some day.

When it was over, when they were extinguishing the lanterns and everyone was mumbling their goodbyes; when Bill and Fleur had left on their Italian honeymoon, arm in arm out to the flying carriage floating gently above the lane, Ginny took Harry out behind the garden, to where the woods gathered more thickly. Night was lightly pulled over them, a mantle of silk dewdrops and silver moonlight; fireflies darted between the tree trunks, twirling to the songs of the crickets and grasshoppers. The leaves, long tendrils of willow strands, hung around them, enveloping them in a shroud away from the rest of the party.

“You look lovely, Gin,” Harry whispered to her. He was laying in the grass, his head resting on her stomach. He had been holding her hand, brushing gently over her fingers with his, but now he raised it to his lips, kissed the delicate lump of her wrist bone.

“You look just as lovely,” she had countered, smiling down at him. She was laying at a little angle so she could still see his face, her head pillowed in the soft grass of early summer. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” He kissed her wrist again, just a bit awkwardly.

“Kissing me. Dancing with me. Laying out here in the grass with me.” Ginny swallowed, pushed her fingertips against his cheek as he kissed her again. “What happened to we can’t be together?”

Harry was silent a moment. She could feel his breath fluttering against the underside of her wrist, the pale sensitive bit of skin that gave her more chills than she knew what to do with.

Then, he said suddenly, “I guess I’m finding that a bit of a difficult promise to keep.”

“Me too,” Ginny had answered softly.

She rolled over in the grass and kissed him on the mouth. It was a hungrier kiss, a different kind of kiss—not an innocent, sweet one along the wrist bone; not one of declarative ownership in front of the Common Room and everyone who mattered—it was an eager, insistent kiss that seemed to pour out of her. Her hand came up to his jaw; his fingers went to the back of her head, pulling her against him with an insistence that she understood.

“I love you,” Ginny said, softly, when they broke the kiss. “I think.”

“You think?” Harry laughed a little, running a knuckle lightly over her bottom lip.

“Yes. I think.”

“I love you too,” he had answered, and drew her mouth down to kiss her again.

That had been it, really.

It had felt so silly to pretend not to be involved in each other, like they were back in the halls of Hogwarts, playing the game of loves-me-not. Harry was worried for her, didn’t want anyone to know that they were together, stealing out of the house on warm summer nights, hand-in-hand, down to Ottery St. Catchpole to the local pub, dancing slowly in the amber light to the Muggle jukebox. It was a feverish summer, walking together all night until the morning had come, kissing in the darkness. Once she snuck into his room, sliding between the sheets and pressing herself against him.

“Ginny,” he had whispered, surprised.

“I just want to lay beside you,” she replied. The cool air of the bedroom crawled along her skin; she twined her fingers around his hair, smoothing it out under her hand. “You’re warm.”

“You’re cold,” Harry answered, kissing her nose. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Sometimes,” she answered, “but not often. I spend too much time walking around with you in the woods. What about you?”

“As often as I can,” he had laughed. “Are you sleeping in here, with me?”

“If you’ll let me,” Ginny said shyly, after a moment.

“Sure.”

When she woke up, she was laying on his chest, her red hair fanning out over his skin. The sun was peeking between the curtains—Bill’s old curtains; Harry was sleeping in Bill’s old rooms, with faded white bedsheets and a very old Weird Sisters poster peeling off the wall.

Harry yawned, his eyes creeping open. “Morning.”

“G’morning. Sleep well?”

Ginny could see the lines of his sweet smile, turning up the corners of his mouth. “Yeah.”

It was autumn when he left. She walked alone between the tumbling leaves of the backyard, her arms wrapped around herself; she didn’t say goodbye. He wasn’t going for good, she kept telling herself. He would be coming back.

School that term was just as dull as she had anticipated. The place seemed bigger, colder, emptier than she remembered: but it was emptier. Harry, Ron, Hermione—the Patil twins, and so many more people. Ginny practically had the dormitory to herself, except for Elosie Midgeon, who wasn’t much company and sniffled at night. More noticeably missing were Professor Snape, Draco Malfoy—other sons and daughters of Death Eaters, too—and Dumbledore. Always Dumbledore missing from the front of the Great Hall, from the start-of-term feast; from his seat in the Quidditch matches and everywhere else in between. Hogwarts was empty, and lonely. With only Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood for company—not that she minded their company, particularly, it was only that Ginny felt more comfortable alone—she took to trailing along beside the edge of the lake, smoking cigarettes down to the ash and grinding them out on the backs of rocks. Usually she sat by the water’s edge, dipping her toes in the little lapping waves and watching the water glimmer at her, wondering what Harry, Ron, and Hermione were doing; wondering where Harry was. She felt soppy, useless; half the time she considered seizing her broomstick from the cupboard and flying till she found them, not leaving till they let her help. She crumpled a thousand letters to Harry, always beginning with insults and dissolving into lines of love, lines that she couldn’t ever finish and send away to him.

And it didn’t go as quickly as they expected. Ginny would have thought Harry would catch Voldemort and finish him off, that such a climactic battle couldn’t hang over them for years without end. But it never ended: Harry chased after Horcruxes, and Voldemort chased after Harry. Sometimes Ginny woke at night with her heart knocking at her ribs, and she could swear that she had been dreaming of him, of something terrible—but she could never remember just what. She would pace the Common Room all night, wishing there was some way to talk to him, wishing that she could see him again, that she could know he was all right.

She didn’t see Harry until mum’s funeral, standing awkwardly at the back of the room as though he were a stranger. The glint of his glasses was what had caught her eye, and she couldn’t help but feel a little guilty that desire stirred in her stomach—desire to march over and kiss him, pull him upstairs with her, remind him that she loved him in every way that she could jog his memory. Guilty, because this was a funeral. Guilty, because that wasn’t what they agreed to. It was private, it was a secret, and marching over there and kissing him would break the secret.

Dad had hugged Harry, clasping him in a fatherly embrace; Ginny tried to keep her hug as sisterly as possibly, but darted a furtive glance up at him when they drew apart. His face, thinner than she remembered with a hint of stubble along the jaw, was carefully blank—but she caught the crook of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, a little gleam behind his glasses.

The night before the funeral, when she couldn’t sleep, Ginny padded downstairs from her room, slipping his door open and sliding herself into the dark room. He didn’t say a word, not till she was between the sheets with him.

“Ginny,” he whispered, once, and kissed the top of her head. She thought his voice might break; she knew if she said anything in reply, hers would break too.

Harry was older when she came to him, ages older—but then again, so was she, she thought. Ginny almost didn’t recognize him when she drew his t-shirt over his head and ran her hands over skin she had thought she knew so well. Harry was harder, more muscled and skinnier all at the same time. There were scars that she didn’t remember, little ones puckering across his shoulders, awful scars that hadn’t quite healed.

“What happened?” she asked, smoothing one of the faded marks beneath the pad of her thumb.

He was still a moment, then shrugged. “I’ll tell you some other time.”

“Tell me now,” she insisted.

“No,” Harry replied. “I don’t want to ruin it.”

“Oh,” Ginny said softly.

He kissed the same: ravenous fervor, biting a little at her bottom lip. And his hands skimmed off her clothes, loosened the notches on her belt, drew her shirt over the top of her head in a simple move. She had been a little more clumsy, struggling with the waistband of his pants till he helped her, shimmying out of them without much difficulty.

They lay beside each other in the dark of the guest room, the moonlight elongating the shadows along the floorboards, silvering their skin.

“You’ve a thousand lightning bolt scars now,” Ginny marveled, tracing a long one along the line of his hip.

“None of them are any more luck than the first damn one.” He was kissing along the ridge of her eyebrow, little soft kisses that stirred her skin and made her feel warm from tip to toe.

“On the contrary,” she replied, laying a hand on his chest. “I think they’re very lucky.”

They made love for the first time that night. It was awkward at first, with lots of confused hand placements and lots of things that Ginny was certain that she got wrong. Harry slid her hair out of its loose ponytail, tossing the rubberband aside onto the floor.

“My hair’s going to spill into your face,” she complained.

He stroked it back away from her forehead. “Who said you’re going to be on top?”

“You utter, utter bastard,” she grumbled, but he was kissing her collarbone now, just as lightly as he’d kissed her eyebrows; along the hollow of her throat; and, “Oh,” she said, when he had kissed his way down between her breasts, in the little caved indentation of the front of her ribcage. “That’s awful nice.”

“Are you going to talk through this?” The rumble of Harry’s laugh tickled her skin and made her squirm.

“It’s not as though I know what I’m doing—I mean, I’ve never done this before.”

“Neither have I, but it’s not as though people talk through sex, is it?”

“Well, neither of us know for sure. Perhaps we ought to try it both ways, just to be sure.”

“Oho.” Harry laughed, running his hands along her sides and sliding his fingers up to her throat. “Getting eager and ahead of ourselves, are we?”

“At least we’re getting somewhere. You, on the other hand, seem perfectly content to linger above me.” She tipped her head to one side, grinning at him. “Are you sure you can handle this?”

“There are instincts,” he huffed, looking offended. “I mean, if—”

This was as close to the old Harry that Ginny had yet seen: not as serious, not as grown-up, with the veneer of adulthood slipping away back into chatty adolescent arguments and little games of power play. Ginny slithered her hands in the narrow space between them, pressing her hands against his chest again.

“Instincts,” she said, “are a good starting point.”

He didn’t seem to need a second invitation.

She crept her hands along his back, feeling the knobs of his spine, the lines of his ribs tense and straight beneath his skin. He was kissing along her collarbone again, back down the front, down to her taut stomach. Ginny could feel herself stiffening against him, could feel him stiffening against her, his muscles growing tighter and tighter. His hips were sharp, digging in against hers, but it wasn’t exactly painful: just something to get used to. Soon only one of her hands was on his back, stroking along his spine; the other lay cast off aside, loose over her head, unneeded.

Without warning, one hand darted down between her legs, to the warm fusion between, his fingertips pressing down with certain insistence. Ginny could feel herself gasp, the breath tearing out between her teeth as his fingers brushed none-too-gently but in a firm determination. The other was at her breasts, kneading the skin between his fingers, tugging and pulling at the stiffening nipples.

Absurdly, Ginny thought of the awkward night in fifth year when he’d tried to put his hand up her jumper and lost his nerve. Before she could stop herself, in between gasps of pleasure, she felt laughter bubbling up, spilling between her lips.

Harry stopped abruptly. “What’s so funny?”

“Just thinking about your hands.”

“Oh, yeah?” He looked down to her chest, where his hand was sprawled like a limp spider across her left breast. “What about them?”

“Just—just thinking about them,” Ginny said with another giggle. “Oh, Harry,” she added, quickly, “not at you, love. Just—just thinking, is all.”

“Is it that bad?” he asked heavily, rolling himself away from her onto his side of the bed.

“Jesus God, no,” she muttered, “No. I regret to inform you, however, that, Harry James Potter, you are simply cursed.”

“Cursed?”

“Cursed to be naturally good in bed.” She sighed, clapping a hand to her brow. “It’s a sad condition with a sadder fate, I know, but I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Nothing I can do,” Harry growled, reaching for her waist, “hunh, we’ll see about that—” but Ginny was nimbler than him, dodged his hands and slipped herself over him, her hands knotted in his hair, her breasts squashed between them.

“Told you I’d end up on top,” she whispered in his ear.

“I think your hair’s choking me,” he sputtered.

“I warned you, but you just wouldn’t listen.” She lifted herself off of his chest, pushed herself onto him with a little gasp. “Isn’t this how it’s done? Oh God.”

“Ginny,” he mumbled, as he thrust into her—deeply, quickly, moving rapidly against her. She felt warm, inexplicably warm all over but warmest in particular between her legs where the two of them met, fused together.

And it didn’t matter that her hair was choking him, if he was good or bad. Nothing in particular much seemed to matter, except that they were together, together in the truest sense of the word; for a few moments, gliding along in a paroxysm of passions Ginny hadn’t thought possible, for a few moments, she felt whole, complete, with him, with him in her and her in him and together like one person in two as one.

She was moaning, she realized after a moment; not loudly, but little tiny moues of sound that buzzed against her lips. He was kissing her, his lips pressing against her; she was rocking back and forth over him, their chests pushed together, their mouths locked as they knit together—until, after what seemed ages, she could feel her muscles bunching, everything spasming, shuddering against her. He thrust into her, against her, one last time, his hands gripping her neck, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

Ginny stayed where she was, against him.

“It’s a damn funeral tomorrow,” she said after a minute, “and we’re up here in the guest bedroom rutting like animals. It’s my mum’s damn funeral, for God’s sake.”

Harry pushed her hair away from her sweaty face, kissed her mouth very gently. “It’s all right,” he told her, and she knew that it was.

“Què, Sería, Sería,” she said, pressing herself against his hand. “Isn’t that right?”

“‘Whatever will be, will be’,” he agreed. “I’d sing it to you, but I’d feel like a right stupid poofter for doing that, especially after sex.”

“Sing it anyway,” Ginny mumbled, nuzzling against him.

He did, smoothing her hair under his hand and singing gently, softly in the darkness.

And that had been it, really, for a time.