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Thinking about it now, Harry decided that his luck had actually never been that bad. That perhaps all those small incidents where he had to burn Voldemort’s face off, or battle a basilisk, or enter the Triwizard tournament, or… die, had been an accumulated trade-off for that destined day in Gryffindor tower, when Ginny had run into his arms and kissed him, easy as breathing, lucky as felix.
And then somehow, the universe had let that kiss transition into an actual relationship. A short one, yes, but he hadn’t died yet then. Or lived in a tent for a year. To be honest, he had probably been in debt at that point, with luck, and his seventh year had just managed to pay it off. So, after everything ended and the dust settled, he was left with an empty account. And boy did he know it.
‘She’ll come around. She didn’t talk to me for two months when I accidentally set her favourite dress on fire,’ Ron said, appearing above Harry, upside down.
Harry threw his head back and covered his face with his arms, mumbling something incomprehensible. He felt the blood rush all the way from his legs, stretched out on the wall above his camp bed, to his ears. He wondered if he’d pass out from the sensation.
Ron sat down opposite to him, back leaning against the wall, and reached out a hand to remove the book residing on Harry’s chest. He scoffed and Harry grimaced.
‘You’re actually reading this? I hate to say it mate, but I don’t think it has a section on what to do when you chuck your girlfriend to go and defeat a dark lord and then you embarrassingly make it out alive.’
Harry groaned and sat up, not minding if he bashed Ron in the face with his feet. Ron swatted him out of the way, laughing. ‘Maybe you should write one, I’m sure they’d love to have a guest piece from the Chosen One.’
‘I’ve decided to try and resurrect Voldemort, so he can finish me off for good,’ Harry said, deadpan, and Ron only laughed harder. Harry tore the book from his hands and got up from the bed, ready to leave, before someone else appeared in the doorway.
‘What are you two laughing about?’ Hermione said, coming around the corner. She took one look at the book in Harry’s hand, his sour face and Ron’s gleeful one, and frowned.
‘Oh Harry, you really must just give it time. She obviously still wants to be with you.’
Harry pursed his lips and stared at Hermione. ‘Obviously?’ he asked. ‘Oh yeah, obviously.’ He turned to Ron and jerked his thumb back at Hermione. ‘Can you believe it mate? Hermione’s got this cracked.’
Ron cringed and looked nervously between Harry and Hermione, uncertain of who to support. Harry ran a hand through his hair and flopped back onto the bed.
‘Do you mean it was obvious the time she threw a chicken at me when I tried to talk to her at the hen-house?’ he asked.
‘That was brilliant,’ Ron mused.
‘Or was it when she said she wanted to go to Diagon Alley and I told her I needed to go too, so she suddenly decided she didn’t need to?’ Harry said as he pulled his wand out of his jeans pocket and twirled it in the air. ‘Let’s not forget the flowers incident.’ he exclaimed, sounding falsely hopeful. ‘You’re right Hermione, she’s just desperate to get back together.’
‘It’s hard Harry. We’re all dealing with things in our own ways,’ Hermione said, sighing. She sat next to Ron and his hand came naturally to her thigh. Harry huffed at the sight. He also felt quite guilty. He threw Ron and Hermione one last look, mumbled something about the loo, or going for a fly, then left them alone, trudging down the stairs.
In his head it didn’t sound great, but he had never had to work very hard to seduce a girl. Cho had been some train-wreck that he still wasn’t sure how he had gotten into, and Ginny had just been… it had also just happened. And he knew he was a lucky bastard for that. Now, he felt like he was seriously out of his depth.
He stumbled out of the Burrow, running through successively ridiculous scenarios in his head that all resulted in him holding Ginny in his arms, smiling brilliantly. An odd number of the fantasies echoed their first kiss uncannily, crowds all around them and the feeling of a win bursting in his chest. He entertained the thought of how possible it would be to orchestrate such an event in the foreseeable future.
In his musing he made unconsciously for the broom shed, but before he reached it, he noticed movement at the edge of the orchard. He raised his hand to his brow, squinting in the sun, and saw her in the middle of the blossoms, reaching high for a cherry at the top of a tree. He watched her for a moment, until he really started to feel sad, then he dashed back into the burrow, grabbed a wicker basket from the kitchen and strode back outside, heading for her,
‘Erm. I was wondering if you needed some help?’ he asked as he came up behind her.
She didn’t react to his intrusion, which Harry counted as a good thing. ‘I don’t. We can’t pick too many or they’ll spoil,’ she said shortly, not even glancing his way. He tensed his jaw, but valiantly carried on.
‘Can’t we just make glazed ones?’ he asked.
‘We don’t like the glazed ones,’ Ginny said. She picked a cherry out of her basket and popped it in her mouth, finally turning to look at him. He stared as she moved her mouth, spat out the pip and then revealed a tied knot on the tip of her tongue. She picked it up daintily and looked at it as if it was nothing, then threw it over her shoulder.
Harry was rooted to the spot, commanded to stand there and watch her. The sun beat down on him, offering some excuse for a flush on his neck. On his face. On his whole body. She quirked an eyebrow at him and he cleared his throat.
‘You can never have too many cherries…’ he started, but she waved him off.
‘You can. And you don’t want to be doing chores right now, do you?’
Harry tried to tell her, without words but with every fibre of his being, that he simply wanted to be doing whatever she was doing. She missed the message, turning away from him and humming a tune, adding more cherries to her basket. He somehow unstuck his feet from the ground and turned around.
‘I’ll get you some water, then,’ he said lamely. He heard a hint of a reply behind him, and then set off, back to square one.
The next night, Ginny didn’t come down for dinner, and after everyone spilled over into the living room for tea, Mrs Weasley took Harry aside, handing him a warm plate of roast and mash potatoes. ‘Won’t you take this up to Ginny, dear?’ she asked, looking at him sweetly.
Harry wanted to turn around and ensure that Mrs Weasley was indeed speaking to him, but a gleam in her eye and the smile on her face told him that she knew exactly who she was talking to. He took the plate, stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at Mrs Weasley. She shooed him and he took a deep breath, starting to climb the stairs.
The first knock on the door yielded no answer. He knocked a second time and spoke through the wood. ‘Gin, it’s Harry, I’m just bringing you some food.’ He pushed the door, that was surprisingly not locked, and it slowly creaked open to reveal Ginny curled up at her window, staring outside.
He stood uncertainly just beyond the threshold, then came closer and placed her food on her desk, the closest surface to the window. He awkwardly clapped his hands together. ‘She’s gone all out again,’ he said, ‘keeps her busy I suppose. Nice to be busy.’
Her hair fell across her shoulders as she turned her head. Her face was red and blotchy, and he felt an overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around her. It took all his strength to resist it.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered, then resumed her vigil at the window.
‘Do you- are you okay?’ he asked, stepping closer to her. He could see her reflection in the window now, the way she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
‘I’m fine. Thank you for the food. You can go now.’
‘Gin, I just- ‘
‘You. Can. Go,’ she ground out, and he noticed the wand lying next to her on the windowsill for the first time. He scratched at his brow and pursed his lips, then whirled on his heel and left, not without closing the door firmly behind him. He stood on the landing, breathing hard for a few seconds. He leaned back against her door and closed his eyes.
‘Oh dear.’
He cracked his eyes open and saw Mrs Weasley at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at him with sorry eyes. He shook his head and climbed downstairs, moving past her with his head bowed. As he slipped into the living room, he heard the tell-tale creak of the floorboards indicating that Mrs Weasley had entered Ginny’s room.
Two days passed after that incident, and not much changed. Anytime he was left alone with Ginny, she found some excuse to get someone in with them or leave the room. She didn’t look at him, she didn’t talk to him, she didn’t do anything. What was most infuriating was that she was perfectly civil with everyone else in the house, laughing and joking with them. Harry was beginning to think that she truly hated him, that perhaps he should finally move out of the Burrow and save everyone the discomfort.
On Friday morning, Mrs Weasley gathered Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny in the kitchen and laid down a slip of paper on the scrubbed kitchen table, pushing it towards them. ‘Won’t you four run into town for me and pick up a few things? You can get yourselves something nice too.’
‘I can’t- ‘Ginny started.
‘All four of you. There’s lots to get.’ Mrs Weasley left no room for argument and so they set off, down the dirt lane that led into the town of Ottery St Catchpole. Hermione dropped back to walk with Ginny, and Harry tried to ignore the fact that he could hear them arguing about something, whispering to each other. Ron distracted him with quidditch until they reached the small square, where they regrouped.
‘Right,’ Ron said. He looked at Hermione and they engaged in a wordless conversation. Harry and Ginny pointedly avoided each other’s gaze until they finished, and Ron spoke up again. ‘Hermione and I will go to the butcher, Harry and Ginny, you’ll go to the grocers. Bye!’
He had no sooner finished talking than he slapped the grocery list into Harry’s hand, grabbed Hermione and dashed away with her. Harry stared dumfounded at his friends. His friends who were supposed to like him. To care for his well-being.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ Ginny said, plucking the list out of Harry’s hand, and then she was dashing away from him too and he had to jog to catch up with her, already at the door of the grocers. She made to take a basket from the pile at the entrance but he reached for it at the same time and looked at her as he pulled it up, feeling triumphant, though her rolling eyes made him feel slightly less so.
He followed Ginny around the store, silent as she picked items off the shelves and dropped them into the basket. For a moment he was struck with the domesticity of it, the fact that he could imagine doing this with her every week, to go back to a home of their own. Where they would cook together and clean together and-
‘Just apples and lettuce left.’
Harry blinked. Ginny was right in front of him, placing a collection of onions in the basket.
‘You get the apples; I’ll get the lettuce. Meet at the tills.’
Harry nodded absently then turned on the spot, trying to locate said fruit. He spotted them one aisle over, piled high in a neat stack in a wooden crate. He pulled a paper bag from the dispenser and considered the pile. He reached for a shiny red apple, his hand closing surely around it. The mountain of apples wobbled, wavered and then, because his life was just like that, the fruit came tumbling down onto the floor, cascading around his feet and rolling every which way. He watched in horror as the pile depleted enough that he could see beyond it into the next aisle, where Ginny stood clutching a head of lettuce, eyes wide.
‘Bollocks,’ he said under his breath.
But then, something that he hadn’t expected happened, something that only seemed to further confirm his suspicions that he was engaged in some twisted exchange with the universe. Ginny laughed. He saw it with her own two eyes, she laughed and then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth in horror. He found himself beaming at her, and then she looked at him in a way that she hadn’t done in so long.
‘Blast this.’ Harry turned his head to see a man in a white apron bending down and picking up the apples, dropping a few from his hands as he went. Harry hastily bent down to help.
‘I’m sorry, sir, I um- ‘
‘No, no it’s quite alright. Second time this week! Lenny is not going to be on stacking duty from now on, I can guarantee!’
‘I’m sorry.’ Harry repeated, and the man waved him off. Ginny came over to help them pick up the apples, and they were soon stacked again, though perhaps not in a much more stable fashion. The man finally lifted his head to look at the two of them and smiled at Ginny.
‘Ginny Weasley!’ he said.
‘Hello Mr Olson,’ Ginny returned the greeting. There was an awkward silence in which Mr Olson just looked at Harry, rocking back on his heels. ‘Oh,’ Ginny spluttered, ‘This is Harry Potter… a, um, friend of my brothers,’ she mumbled.
Harry felt something of a pit form in his stomach at his introduction, but shook Mr Olson’s hand nonetheless. The shop manager looked between the two of them meaningfully and Ginny took a subtle step back from Harry.
‘You really should come over sometime soon. You and Simon used to play every day. I can tell he misses you.’ Mr Olson winked, and Ginny smiled, though it formed more of a grimace. Harry wondered who Simon was. ‘What’s the name of that posh school all of you Weasleys are shipped of to? Are things going well?’
Ginny stuttered, looking around the room. Harry tapped his watch dramatically. ‘Oh look at the time, we really should be getting home for lunch. The school has a proper name, you can be assured. Come on Gin.’ He took a hold of her hand, fitting so wonderfully in his, but as they reached the till Ginny abruptly let go and started to stack the groceries on the counter.
‘Nice man,’ Harry said conversationally, handing off the last tin of tomatoes to her. She shrugged and pulled out her purse, fishing in it for money. They soon had everything stacked in paper bags and were making their way out of the shop when Harry’s curiosity got the better of him.
‘Who’s Simon then?’ he asked.
‘Why do you care?’
‘Because I like talking to you. I like finding out more about you.’ Which, he figured, was not a complete lie. She sent him a sceptical look and readjusted the bags in her arms.
‘There’s really nothing very exciting. Don’t know why you’re so interested,’ she said.
Harry sighed. He saw Ron and Hermione at the other end of the square, sitting on a bench, bickering. Ginny kept walking, but he wished she would just stop and listen to him.
‘You’re not going to tell me?’ he pushed.
‘I don’t know why you think you have to know everything about me. And ask me everything, and do everything for me, and be so nice.’ Ginny’s voice rose as she spoke, and her face became increasingly red.
‘Because I want to!’ he replied incredulously. ‘Because I like you and I like to do things for you! Merlin, is that so hard to accept?’
‘Yes, it is!’
‘You’re being so- so,’ he wished his arms were free so he could express himself properly. He crunched the paper bags in his arms. ‘So difficult!’
Ginny stopped in her tracks and looked at him with murder dancing in her eyes. ‘I’m not the one who’s jealous of a bloody dog, Harry Potter! Sod off!’ And then she stormed away, past the bench where Ron and Hermione sat, and had definitely heard her outburst from. She retreated up the lane to the Burrow with impressive speed.
Harry watched her forlornly, then shifted his eyes over to Ron and Hermione. The latter was looking at him with a pitiful expression, and the former was shaking his head. Harry heaved the grocery bags in his hands and walked past them, to complete a solitary trip back to the house.
Midnight struck the Burrow, and like clockwork, Harry awoke from a dream. This one had been very different from the usual horrors his mind whipped up for him. It had still been mortifying, but this one had consisted of Mr Weasley and Vernon Dursley, sitting him down to talk about… “womanly things” as they had coined it. He shuddered and sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed.
The dream had not been completely random. After the debacle of the day, Harry had decided that perhaps he needed something better than a book to turn to for advice, like a person.
For one of the few times of his life, he had been acutely aware of what had been taken away from him when his parents had died. A dad that could offer advice on how to talk to girls. How to apologise to one. From all the stories that he had heard about his dad, and how he chased after his mum, Harry supposed he would be an expert in this department, and perhaps this whole thing would have been resolved by now.
Or it wouldn’t have happened at all.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He had no chance of getting back to sleep without getting out of bed for a bit. He threw on a shirt and tip-toed out of Ron’s room, closing the door quietly behind him.
In the kitchen he filled a glass with water and leaned against the sink, drinking deeply from it. The steady tick of the clock in the sitting room resounded around the house. The hoot of an owl punctuated the night. Harry peered out at the night sky, which was brilliantly lit up by the full moon. He made a note to visit Teddy in the morning.
He was about to turn back upstairs when he spotted something in the corner of his eye. He assessed the night sky again and then saw it, a broom, weaving through the air. One glance up at long flowing hair told him who was sat upon it.
Harry lifted his eyes up to the ceiling. ‘Is this the chance you’re giving me? I haven’t done anything especially embarrassing or life threatening lately.’
And the universe didn’t answer. But he squared his shoulders anyway and walked out the kitchen door and into the night.
The grass was dewy and tickled his bare feet. He didn’t rush to the paddock, he kept his eyes fixed on her however, steadily coming right underneath her, where he could now see a quaffle clutched in her arms.
He sat down on the grass and rested his hands behind him. If she noticed him, she didn’t show it. She circled the makeshift hoops, throwing the quaffle and then diving to catch it. She moved with a furious precision, a confidence that told him she had been here many nights before.
After a few more rounds she abruptly stopped and dropped to the ground. Harry watched her with curiosity. She threw her broom to the side and strode straight for him, ripping at the wrist guards on her arms as she did so.
‘Do you need something?’ she asked, coming to stand before him with her hands on her hips.
‘Yes,’ Harry replied without a moment’s hesitance. She seemed surprised at his conviction, shifting her stance.
‘Out with it then,’ she said.
‘I need to apologise.’
‘For what?’ she challenged.
He considered her for a moment. ‘For expecting things to be the same,’ he said.
She crossed her arms over her chest, but then reached up and let her hair loose from the ponytail it had been tied in. She shook her hair out and sat down across from him; legs stretched out like his. She didn’t say anything, and Harry ran through any other things he should be especially sorry for. Oh, there were doubtless many, but none of them were what he knew she wanted to hear.
‘And you?’ he asked her.
‘What do you mean “and me”?’
‘What do you need?’ he asked. No games, no more running around her or despairing in himself. He felt a weight lift off his shoulders.
‘I- ‘she paused, looking out into the night. ‘I don’t know what I need.’ She said.
He nodded. ‘Then what do you want?’
She looked back at him and sucked in a breath. For the first time in ages it seemed her guard was down. That she wasn’t looking to close him off at every juncture. She pulled at the wet grass and scattered it in a pile. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘Then why all this?’ he asked. ‘It seems you’ve made up your mind as far as I can tell.’
‘I haven’t Harry. I know I’ve been… I’ve been cruel but it just- ‘she took in a deep breath and pulled her hair back, twisting it in her hands. ‘I can’t just go back to being that golden couple, to being so perfect, to being so… happy.’ She said.
‘Golden couple?’ he asked, leaning forward.’
She sent him a withering look. ‘You know that’s what we were, what everyone thought we were,’ she said. ‘And then wasn’t it just so lovely and tragic for you to go off and fight a war and then come back from the dead, so we could live happily ever after,’ she said in a sing-song voice.
‘Where on earth is all this coming from?’
‘From just about every girl in my year and below,’ she scoffed. She turned to the side and wiped at her eye. Harry shifted ever so closer to her, but she waved a hand at him and he stopped. He looked at the ground, thinking about Ginny being stuck at Hogwarts last year, brothers gone, friends far and few between, and people saying things like… that.
‘And… you wanted to make it more tragic?’ he curved their conversation and she looked at him in confusion. He cleared his throat and straightened up.
‘War hero returns from the clutches of death, eager to reunite with his one true love, but alas, she rebuffs him, and the tragedy does not end here my dear onlookers. For our hero must toil some more.’
Miraculously, she laughed, shaking her head and looking at him with a raised eyebrow. More of a pity laugh, but a reaction all the same.
‘There’s just so much between us now,’ she said. ‘A year filled with secrets and horrors that I can’t imagine ever saying out loud.’
‘I think we were spoiled. Knowing each other since we were kids,’ he said. ‘It’s almost like normal people have to talk to build relationships.’
‘It’s not the same- ‘she rebutted, but he was already nodding his head with her.
‘Gin- I think you know this by now, but I- I still really want to be with you. And I know there’s so much that’s different, but I don’t care if it takes years to get that all out between us. I want this, and I want you to know it so that we can just… move on.’
She swept a piece of hair out of her face and regarded him with a glint in her eye. ‘Did you mean it?’ she asked.
‘Mean what?’
‘” His one true love”,’ she smiled at him coyly and he felt a hot flush bloom up his neck. He met her gaze evenly.
‘Well, treacle tart might be upset, but yeah,’ he said. ‘I think so.’
She leaned forward, and for one moment Harry thought she was going to leap into his arms, but she only stood up and held out a hand to him.
‘I’m sorry as well,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve been unfair. So, can we start over from here?’ she asked. ‘As friends.’
‘Friends?’ he confirmed, taking her hand.
‘For now,’ she said.
‘That’s brilliant.’ he said.
Ginny retrieved her broom and came back to him with a mischievous look in her eye. ‘Imagine me holding a treacle tart,’ she said nonchalantly, as she strode in front of him, broom on her shoulders. Harry groaned dramatically and clutched at his chest.
‘Merlin Gin, you’re sending me over the edge.’
She laughed and he stood rooted to the spot again, watching her hips sway. When he eventually gathered the wherewithal to follow her, he tripped over in his haste and fell to the floor, as he got up, he looked to the sky. ‘Thought as much,’ he said, brushing his hands off, speaking into the night.
He figured there were going to be a lot of things like that for the next good while. He also figured, if it all balanced out in the end, he wouldn’t mind so much.